


It's Just Nothing

by Pisces21Red



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Arguments (In General), Basically Anything One Can Think Of When Thinking Of A Horror Story/Or Movie, Crazy Occurences, Demons, Dysfunctional Family, Family Gallavich, Ghosts, Haunted House, M/M, Sexy Times (Of course), Shit Falls Apart, Sort of Lovey Gallavich, Teen arguments, Teen/Parent Arguments, scary shit, teenaged children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:13:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1686311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pisces21Red/pseuds/Pisces21Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey and Ian move into a house with their three teenaged children.</p>
<p>Yet as time passes by, they begin to realize something's not quite right with the house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As a big movie fan, especially a big horror movie fan, I felt that there just needed to be a Gallavich horror story out there, so I created one. Don't know how people'll take to it, hopefully well, but I pushed myself to quickly get this first chapter out and see where it goes.

Ian maneuvers the truck up into a smoothly paved driveway, excited to have finally arrived at their new house after a near hour drive from the city of Chicago to the city of Highland Park, Ian knew the rest of the occupants of the car are quite anxious as well to see their new place.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Mickey exhales, taking his feet off of the dashboard and sitting up to peer out the windshield. “Why’d we have to find a house so far away, again?”

“Mick, it was like a 40 minute drive.” Rolling his eyes, Ian glances in the rear view mirror seeing all three of their kids otherwise preoccupied with something, none of them looking up to take in the new place they’re about to move into.

Looking at Yevgeny, earphones in, bright eyes focused intently on his phone, Ian lets out a low sigh.

Yevgeny, now 17 years old, stands almost at Ian’s height, making him laughably in everyone else’s eyes taller than his father, Mickey. Svetlana’s greenish-teal like eyes stare out of Yevgeny’s head, and while the young man has inherited not only his Russian mother’s eyes but her nose as well, he’s inherited his Ukrainian father’s muscled stature similar to the way Mickey’s body was in his late teens. Yevgeny’s short dark hair is gelled back against his head, with a few stray pieces hanging over his forehead.

And to Mickey’s dismay, a full sleeve black and shadowy-grey tattoo is marked heavily into the pale skin of Yevgeny’s left arm. Ranging from a blooming rose to a skull to a fucking shark of all things, Mickey damn near had a heart attack when at 16, ‘Geny had come home with it on his arm. Ian had to physically pull Mickey with him into their bedroom to keep him from trying to strangle his oldest son, and after an hour of trying to reason with his husband, Ian had left Mickey in the bedroom to let him cool off while he went off to ‘Geny’s room to have a talk with him.

Mickey hates that Ian likes the tattoo. He hates that even the rest of the Gallagher family as well as Kev, V and their twins and even his fucking sister and Svetlana don’t see a problem with it, agreeing with Ian in its badassery. Even though he and Ian have gotten more tattoos over the last few years, doesn’t mean that their kids needed to follow in their footsteps, well at least follow in their footsteps at their age.

Mickey and Yevgeny’s relationship with one another is surprisingly stable and loving, as Mickey refused to let their relationship with one another end up shitty like it was with his father, so Mickey reluctantly let the tattoo thing go, though that doesn’t stop him from glaring at it with distaste every once in a while.

The fact that Yevgeny is the product of Svetlana and Mickey is _the_ recipe for disaster all in itself because everyone’s come to realize that not only does Yevgeny have a short temper but he also threatens and scares the shit out of people when it really comes down to it, causing a lot of phone calls to be made home from the administrators, teachers and principal of his school constantly. He’s extremely blunt and quick to snap at the slightest thing, which nine times out of ten makes him butt heads not only with his father but with Ian as well.

“Well…what d’ya guys think?” Turning off the ignition, Ian turns in the driver’s seat to look at the other two kids.

Regan looks up from her furious texting on her own phone and turns her gaze to the two-story, medium-sized house outside her window.

Highlighted wavy brown hair twisted into a complicated looking French braid, ponytail thingy, trails a little ways past the middle of her back. Standing around the height of her Aunt Fiona, Regan is a ruthless yet at the same time polite and sweet young beauty. She takes after her Aunt Mandy, except for in the slutty department, which the whole family is quite grateful for, as she can take care of herself, especially when anyone wants to mess with her about having two gay parents, which Mickey, Ian and Mandy take great pride in.

A line of colorful and pretty piercings decorate the sides of both her ears, and a small diamond stud is embedded in her small nose, so similar to the size and shape with that of her father. Ice blue eyes rimmed damn near professionally in black eyeliner and mascara, and teeth as straight as her mother’s; she’s like a mini-version of Svetlana, while Yevgeny is a balanced mixture of both Svetlana and Mickey.

Ian thinks Mickey’s seen The Exorcist one too many times and his decision to honor Linda Blair’s “hilariously funny but fuckin’ scary role as a possessed, fucked up lookin’ little girl” was going a bit to the extreme, as he claims that it’s one of his favorite movies. But after one sees her bitchy side, especially when it’s that time of the month, it’s frightening how perfect her name is for her.

“I don’t like it.” She says simply, promptly focusing her attention back onto her phone, when it buzzed in her light blue painted finger-nailed hands.

Mickey and Ian look at each other in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t like it? The fuck’s wrong with it?”

Shrugging her shoulders, she replies to her father. “Just a feeling; maybe it’ll grow on me.”

“Fuckin’ great, one kid already has a problem with it. You’re shitty at pickin’ out houses, Firecrotch.” Mickey scoffs.

“I’m shitty at- you made the decision with me, Mick! The fuck’re you talking about? And Ray’s just over-exaggerating; she watches too many ghost movies and shit.”

“Whatever. Ray, wake up D.” With that, Mickey opens up his door and gets out, slamming it behind him.

Without taking her eyes off of her phone, she lifts her arm up and flicks Dmitri on the ear, immediately waking him from his drooling nap.

“Ow! That fuckin’ hurt, Regan!” Dmitri punches his older sister in the thigh to which she responds by elbowing him harshly in the shoulder.

Before Dmitri can put his hands back on her, Ian puts a stop to it.

“Alright, alright, calm down. Why Mick always has to get you two riled up with one another is such a fucking mystery. Just get out of the car.” Ian shakes his head at the two of them fondly.

“But Dad-”

“Get out, asshat.”

“Fuck you, Bitch, you’re the one closest to the door. How the fuck ‘m I supposed to get out, you want me to stomp over your lap?” Dmitri questions smartly.

Rolling her eyes, Reagan leans down to pick up her bag and shoves open the door, stepping out. She tries to slam the door on Dmitri but he quickly catches it before it can close on his arm, briefly flipping her the finger smugly.

Dmitri reminds Ian so much of Carl, he doesn’t know if it’s comical or something that they should dread. Dmitri is the one out of the three kids, who looks the most like Mickey, yet he has to be Carl’s long lost twin or some shit. Spiked dark hair, with ocean colored eyes and Mickey’s sharp, pointed-like nose sits on his face, and that’s where the resemblance in appearance ends.

Standing a couple of centimeters taller than his father, Dmitri is more lithely muscled than that of his older brother, but no less of a menace to society.

They get phone calls from the school for Yevgeny, but Ian and Mickey get called down _to_ the fucking school for Dmitri because he was smoking weed in the bathroom with his dumbass friends. Or because he cursed out a teacher and walked out their classrooms or because he was tormenting some kid just for the hell of it, and a few times he’s defaced school property because he was bored and wanted to get out of class.

At 15 years old, the kid is well on his way to being both a sadistic and masochistic, psychopathic demon getting off on causing chaos for fun. He was like a real-life version of Eric Cartman; a vindictive, yet shockingly intelligent boy when thinking of some crazy shit to do, just less fat and much more attractive.

Mickey hates disciplining Dmitri but there was just no way he was going to keep letting him get away with that bullshit, so he’d call Svetlana and let D stay over at her place so she can essentially _whoop his ass_. After all, no kid is ever too old for an ass whooping but rarely will Mickey whoop Dmitri because he’s afraid of turning out like his father; he’s afraid of becoming the type of father who escalates into beating their kids just to get their anger out, despite Ian’s many protests against that thought.

Regardless of all that though, all three of the next generation of Gallagher kids are smart and overall good kids, and they all just have to discover themselves, in Kevin’s wise words, and the Gallagher family couldn’t agree more, because they’ve all gone through worse.

Because Ian was greatly fearful of the fact that his Bi-polar disease would get passed on to any kids he tried to have, he pleaded with Mickey to be the one to participate in the surrogacy for both Regan and Dmitri. They had argued over that for months, with Mickey constantly claiming that he has six siblings, and out of all of them he was the only one who procured the disease, which means there’s a less likely chance that if they decide to have a kid or two, they won’t turn out to be bi-polar, but Ian had adamantly refused.

Svetlana had quietly slipped from her room, since during this time they were all still situated at the Milkovich house, with baby Yevgeny, and told them that she wouldn’t mind acting as a surrogate for their next child or two.

Both Ian and Mickey had been shocked but they knew they were running out of time, since they wanted ‘Geny to have siblings closer to his age, and they knew that this would be a cheaper way.

It had to be the most awkward yet trying moment for all three of them.

After that whole situation when Terry caught them, Mickey and Svetlana never touched each other intimately ever again until then.

They had planned it perfectly. The Milkovich house was quiet and vacant except for the three of them, Mandy out somewhere with Lip probably and Yevgeny at the Gallaghers.

Svetlana was wearing a dark blue robe, tied off tightly, with nothing underneath, sitting in a chair by the side of Mickey’s bed smoking, while Ian fucked Mickey hard and fast and _good_ so they could finish this crazy shit fast. The moment Ian heard Mickey start to whimper and his body start to tense, he pulled out of him slowly, giving ‘Lana the cue to lie on the bed next to them, still clad in her robe.

Lifting the bottom of it up the slightest bit, Mickey reluctantly had crawled over on shaky legs to slip hesitatingly between her legs, and deep inside of her. Ian quickly jumped behind Mickey to rim him sloppily, with his hands slowly massaging his balls and rubbing soothingly up and down his pale back.

Svetlana had found the whole situation amusing and while she was still smoking, she had that mocking little smile on her face, with Mickey still deep inside her yet his eyes rolling close due to his boyfriend’s ministrations.

Once they finished, Svetlana had commented on how Mickey has a beautiful O-face to which he had flipped her off, while Ian let out a quiet laugh.

Surprisingly, the sperm took immediately and eight months later they had Regan.

They decided to do it again as they wanted one more kid, and this time they let Svetlana choose the kid’s name as a way of thanks; then nine months later, out popped Dmitri.

Though it started out awkward and uncomfortable, Ian, Mickey and Svetlana couldn’t have been more happy and thankful that they had these three amazing kids; they couldn’t have regretted it even if they were chained to a fucking wall a thousand miles below Earth’s surface bleeding ruby red blood in streams while the Devil himself laughed in their faces.

Smiling warmly at the thought, Ian snaps out of his memories and turns to look at Yevgeny, tapping him on the leg.

“Hey, you gonna sit in this hot ass truck all day, or you gonna get out and join the living?”

Yevgeny pulls his eyes up and away from his Samsung Galaxy S5, the same phone that Ian, Mickey, Regan and Dmitri have and yanks out his earbuds.

“Why’d we move again?”

Ian raises his ginger colored eyebrows. “You really wanted to stay in that piece of shit apartment? Here, you’ll have your own room, there’s more space, and it’s not like you guys are changing schools, me and Mickey worked that shit out already.”

“Eh, I guess.” Grabbing his stuff, Yevgeny gets out of the truck.

Ian turns his gaze to the windshield, looking after him with a sigh. Him and ‘Geny haven’t been getting along for the past few years and since Ian has his own explosive temper and ups and downs thanks to his fucked up disease, they butt heads more often than not. There’ve been times when Mickey’s had to step between them because they’ve stood nose to nose screaming at each other savagely, ready to unleash their fists on each other.

Mickey would scream at both of them about how they’re fucking family and that they need to get over their shit and stop it with the bullshit. Not one to point fingers, but their arguments with one another _always_ was because of Yevgeny’s attitude and mouth towards him. Ian would ask him a simple question like “how r’ya doing?” or “how was school?” and he would get an asinine comment on behalf of Yevgeny back. Ian would try to keep his cool, but it was like ‘Geny was purposely trying to get under his skin, make him lose it.

Though Yevgeny would join him at the gym where they would do basic workouts as they were built enough as it is, or he would sometimes run with him and Regan in the morning on the weekends, making idle conversation with him. They would hang out once in a while, Ian taking him to a few places here and there or he would talk with ‘Geny whenever he felt it was needed or if ‘Geny would ask him something.

Ian’s not quite sure what he did to warrant Yevgeny’s selective anger but hopefully he’ll snap out of it soon, as the treatment’s been wearing on Ian’s heart, since he’s been a big part of Yevgeny’s life since he was a few months old and treated him like he was his own son; it not only hurts but it angers him to the point where he’s brought it up with Mickey on occasion.

Mickey would always say that that’s just how Yevgeny is right now and that it’s not Ian’s fault and to just let it fucking be. Ian’s never happy with that answer.

A knock on the side of the window tears Ian away from the depressive thoughts.

Opening the car door, Ian steps out with a soft groan, all long and thick limbs cracking from lack of movement due to the slightly long drive without any stops.

“Damn, old man, want me to get you a cane or some shit? That sounded like it hurt.” Mickey says looking his husband up and down appreciatively, yet worriedly.

“Fuck you, you’re two years older than I am, asshole.”

Basketball shorts and a thin hoodie with some worn black converse make up Ian’s outfit, and Mickey can’t help but stare at the thin outline of Ian’s dick, feeling himself starting to get a bit warm beneath the collar. Ian can make anything look good and Ian definitely knows it, if that tell-tale smirk on his face is anything to go by.

“Like what you see, Mick?”

“Fuck, you know I do.”

Looping his arms around his husband’s waist, Ian brings Mickey closer to him and leans down to press a kiss against the inviting looking lips. Mickey smiles into the kiss and brings his tatted hand up to clutch the back of the taller man’s buzz-cut head, the other laying against Ian’s side. Mickey opens his mouth and Ian sinks in quickly, deepening the kiss, large and fat tongue laving all along Mickey’s.

“Oh, fucking gross. Why you guys gotta do that here?”

Dmitri’s loud voice shatters the hot and heavy moment between the two men and they break apart with a silent, mutual promise to continue later.

They walk over towards their kids and Mickey slaps Dmitri over the back of the head. “Why you always gotta curse?”

“Ow! I’m like the punching bag of this family, how fucking fair is that? OW!” Dmitri yells out once his father again punches him hard in the back of the head.

“That’s because you deserve it, you little juvenile.” His sister idly replies.

“So, anyway, what’s everyone think? Besides Ray since she apparently doesn’t like it but believes she’ll grow to.” Ian asks.

They all turn to look at the pale white colored house.

Nice French-windows are built tastefully into the front of the house and a few dark green vines trail up one side making it appear classically beautiful and almost ancient. The front lawn looks like it needs some work as the grass looks like its dying a slow death, color a dull, dull grey and yellow, completely wilted over.

A row of trees cover either side of the house leading to the back of it a brief stretch of woods. The nearest house on their street is a couple of meters away on either side, with the same rule applying to the opposite side of the street; so that the houses weren’t on top of each other and neither did it make any of the houses seem like the ideal place for a damn horror movie.

“It’s cool with me.” Yevgeny shrugs his shoulder in nonchalance.

“The only thing I care about is finally getting my own room.” Dmitri arrogantly says, crossing his arms petulantly.

Ian and Mickey satisfied with the answers lead the kids up to the front of the house, with Mickey getting the keys out and unlocking the heavy wooden door.

“Shit, it’s kinda cold in here.” Ian notices as they all step into the house over the threshold.

Dmitri pushes past all of them, running up the stairs to pick out his room first and the moment Yevgeny and Regan catch on, they too take off up the stairs.

“Ay, stop fuckin’ runnin’!” Mickey shouts after them. He turns around when he hears deep chuckling from behind him. “The fuck’s so funny?”

“Ah, nothing. Just enjoying the parent side of Mickey Gallagher.”

The fact that Mickey willingly and even suggested the idea of taking his last name still leaves Ian speechless sometimes. It leaves him with that tingly feeling that radiates throughout his whole body, leaving behind the pleasant feeling of warmth and overall love in its wake. It’s that same feeling that he got when he and Mickey first fucked, when he and Mickey first kissed, when he and Mickey went on their first official date, when he and Mickey did a lot of firsts together.

And now, they’ve bought a house together, another first they can add to the list.

“Oh please, I just don’t wanna have to deal with somebody crackin’ their head open or some shit just because they’ve got happy feet.”

“Mm, whatever you say. I think we did good, Mick.” Ian says, taking in the already set up living room and light brown carpet.

“Yeah…yeah, I think so too.”

Shouts of pain and what sounds like fists meeting skin makes its way downstairs to Ian and Mickey’s ears, and they let out sighs of annoyance.

“We should’ve assigned them rooms or somethin’. Now we gotta hear them mope and argue about how this room belongs to me and that room belongs to him. Christ, why’d we move again?” Mickey questions, walking to the kitchen to pull out a beer from the fridge, glad that he, Ian, Lip, Carl and Kevin came down a few days ago to set everything up.

_They’re so alike_. Ian smiles and grabs the beer from Mickey, ignoring his warning look and taking a small sip of it himself. “Because if we stayed any longer in that apartment, not only would we have killed each other, but we had to be about a _day_ away from being evicted. I don’t think the neighbors took too kindly to the kids and their noise as well as our noise, _at night_.” Ian says the last part slyly into Mickey’s ear.

Shoving Ian away from him with a low laugh, Mickey snatches the beer back from Ian’s hands and treks from the kitchen to the stairs. “Whatever. This damn place better be worth it.”

“We barely spent a penny on this house, it was so cheap. Somebody was probably murdered here or some shit.”

Following Mickey up the stairs, Ian’s gaze ventures down to the shorter male’s full delicious-looking ass pressing against the seat of his jeans. Feeling the heated stare, Mickey glances back at Ian from over his shoulder, and sticks his ass out even more to tease Ian. “Take a fuckin’ picture, Firecrotch.”

“Already have several of them of them, babe.”

“You better not show anyone.” Mickey threatens half-heartedly.

“Why do you think I have a lock on my phone.” Ian poses in the form of a statement rather than a question. “Though I should probably post some of them to a website, maybe you’ll get an underwear modeling gig and we’ll make an assload of money, ‘cause you’ve _gotta_ have the best looking ass on the face of this whole fucking planet.”

“We already make enough money, Ian,” reaching the top of the stairs, he turns left in the direction of their kids’ voices and makes another half-hearted threat. “And you post those pictures online, your balls are going right where those pictures’ll go when I find them…right into the fuckin’ garbage.”

“Nah, you know damn well Mickey that you’ll miss them too fucking much.”

“Get the fuck out! This is _my_ room, fuckers!” A loud voice screeches and Mickey and Ian roll their eyes.

_It’s going to be a long night_.

-

Sitting down at the polished, rectangular wooden table, set up in the dining room, the family of five sit down to a hearty dinner of two large boxes of extra cheesy pizza and two full liter bottles of Pepsi, making random talk here and there.

After earlier’s fiasco where the kids were trying to choose their rooms, everyone seems to have calmed down enough to become civil with one another again.

“You guys do know you’re going to school tomorrow, right?” Mickey asks them.

They all look up, disappointment and annoyance written all over their features.

“Why? Tomorrow’s Friday!” Yevgeny complains.

“So? That’s the reason you guys are goin’.”

“That’s bullshit. Don’t you guys need help setting everything up or something?”

Looking at Dmitri with an eyebrow lifted, Ian replies, “If you haven’t noticed, D, everything’s already set up. And plus, _you_ especially need to go to school since you’re still paying off your in school suspension for that stupid ass stunt you pulled last month.”

Yevgeny lets out a loud laugh and leans across the table to fist bump with his little brother.

“That shit was classic, man.”

“Ay, don’t encourage the little shit. He’s gonna probably do somethin’ like it again.” Mickey discourages.

“But Dad, you said you’ve done worse in your school days,” Dmitri whines. “I only gave that dick what he deserved. You should’ve heard what he called me, in front of the class too!”

“You put him in the fuckin’ hospital, Dmitri!”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that that old geezer was allergic to laxatives? He should’ve said so!”

“You’re such an idiot.” Regan comments.

“And you’re such a whore.” Dmitri sneers.

“Fuck you!”

“Gross, I ain’t into shit like that. I think that dude you’re messing with is rubbing off on you.”

“What?” Ian asks.

“He has no idea what he’s talking about, Dad.” Regan quickly tries to avert the conversation onto something else but Mickey interrupts.

“What dude, D?”

“This guy, he’s in Yev’s grade and apparently he fucked his step sister at some party a couple of years ago. They were both drunk or high or something like that. But I saw him and Ray all over each other a couple of weeks ago in this guy’s car.”

“You’re fucking around with Drew Maxen?” Yevgeny asks, shocked that his tough as nails and high maintenance, sophomore of a sister is messing with the senior.

“Wait, wait, hold up, the fuck are you doin’ in some guy’s car-”

“Daddy, it wasn’t even like that.”

“Not from the way I saw it.” Dmitri mutters out under his breath.

“Shut the fuck up, D!” Reaching across the table, she punches him in the arm and Dmitri retaliates by grabbing Regan’s ponytail, yanking it viciously.

She scratches his arm with her sharp nails and he hisses, then in anger flicks her in the throat. Knocking over their glasses with their fumbling, the liquid gets spilled all over the table and Mickey jumps up, pulling Dmitri and Regan away from each other.

Mickey pins them both with a furious stare, making Regan and Dmitri gulp nervously. “We just got here and you guys act like fuckin’ animals at the table? Christ, I know we don’t eat together much as a family, but for fuck’s sake if you can’t learn to accept an insult or learn to handle somethin’ without actin’ like you ain’t got no damn sense, then you two are gonna have it hard when you go out into the real world. You both are damn lucky that we decided against getting carpet in the dining room ‘cause I would’ve whooped your asses up and down this street for ruining something ‘cause of your fucking dumb antics. Now, go get some paper towels and clean this shit up.”

Regan and Dmitri, without hesitation run to the kitchen to do as their father told, all the while guiltily looking at each other.

Sitting back down in his seat with a huff, Mickey picks up his half finished pizza and continues to devour it as if nothing happened. Peeking up at Ian, he sees that he’s got a small smile on his face and Mickey could tell that Ian was appreciating his parenting skills once again.

It seems every time Mickey steps into father mode, it turns Ian on to the highest degree. Mickey suspects it’s because Ian can be a bit of a kinky freak sometimes, but Ian’s assured him it’s nothing like that. That instead it’s just adorable to watch Mickey, who used to be the thuggish, littlest Milkovich, be a father to a bunch of crazy, hormone-filled, teenagers; it was just…completely endearing to Ian.

The rest of dinner is a quiet affair after Ray and D clean up their mess, and attempt to behave like they weren’t brought up on a reservation with a bunch of savages scratching at their heads dumbly and fighting over rocks.

Once Yevgeny finishes his food, he jumps up, cleans up his area and brings his stuff to the trash, setting the plate down in the sink.

Saying a quick “Thanks” and “See ya’ later” to his family, Yevgeny sets out to head up the stairs to his new room, but Mickey’s voice stops him when he observes Yevgeny’s rushed movements.

“You got a date or somethin’?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you ask first?” Mickey raises his hand in that common gesture of incredulity, his eyebrows scrunched low over his eyes in a questioning manner.

“Well, no, but-”

“You were just gonna walk out without lettin’ me or Ian know where you were goin’?”

Yevgeny casts a quick look at Ian, seeing him look on in silence before he looks back at his father and answers. “…I guess.”

Mickey nods his head slowly in mocking agreement. “And how were you gonna get to this ‘date’” of yours?”

“Just gonna take the car.”

“Oh really? Well, you can’t, “just take the car” how about that?” Mickey says as normally and as calmly as possible as if he were talking about the weather.

“What- Dad, come on. My car’s in the garage and I need to go.”

“Well that’s not my fuckin’ problem. You’ve done this a couple of times now, and you’re lucky me and your Dad have been more concerned with the movin’ and shit, _and_ you’re lucky that I caught you and I’m in a generous enough mood right now, that I won’t get up and knock some sense into your head and I’ll instead let you go up to your room and chill the fuck out.” Mickey warns.

Yevgeny lets out a little frustrated sigh, but he relents, as if he really has a choice, once he sees his father give that infamous challenging look of his, the one that says “I dare you to tell me I’m wrong”.

The very same one he gave to Mandy when she was in the Gallagher kitchen, eye bright black and blue at the hands of her piece of shit boyfriend at the time, still sugarcoating the fact that Kenyatta punched her fucking lights out.

Going to the fridge, he pulls out a Snapple bottle and slams it shut before making his way dejectedly up the carpeted stairs.

“That went surprisingly well.” Ian points out, gaining an eye-roll from Mickey.

-

Soft pants echo throughout the nearly pitch black room, the soft light from the moon creeping it’s way in between the curtains of Mickey and Ian’s bedroom window to witness the intimate act of the two men.

Bouncing frantically up and down on his husband’s more than average-sized dick, Mickey lets out little mewls towards the ceiling, head tilted back, mouth open, eyes half-lidded in ecstasy.

“Shit, Mick…you look so fucking sexy like this.” Ian groans out from between gritted teeth, sweat dripping down his face.

Mickey moves his head so both of their eyes clash with one another’s, and he moves his hands from where they’re braced against Ian’s bent knees from behind him and places them on Ian’s muscled chest. He leans forward the slightest bit and begins using all his weight to drop back down onto the ginger’s dick.

“Yeah? Ya’ like it when I ride you, baby?” Mickey pants out, a smirk painting across his lips.

“Mmhmm, I fucking _love_ it…fucking sexy ass slapping against my lap…Mm, fucking bounce on that dick, baby.” Ian reaches around Mickey’s gyrating body and grabs two handfuls of Mickey’s thick and full, bubbled ass cheeks, giving both the pale cheeks twin slaps.

“Oooh, fuck, do that shit again, Ian.”

Ian acquiesces and gives the jiggling cheeks a couple more smacks, hand brushing against the elegantly curved tattoo of his name scripted perfectly smack dab in the middle of Mickey’s right ass cheek, before he brings his hands back around to clutch at his hips.

Ian pulls his knees up further so his feet are resting flat on the dark-red covered mattress, and begins to snap his hips up in quick succession, making Mickey’s face go slack and eyes roll up to the back of his head.

“That feel good?”

“Yeeaaahhhh, ohhhh, _shit_.” A few strands of hair has fallen loose from Mickey’s heavily gelled back style due to the feverish pace, and his hands are slipping against Ian’s sweat slicked skin.

Slowing down to catch a few breaths, Ian beckons Mickey to bring his face down and he does. Their lips meet in a sensuous-filled frenzy, tongues smacking against one another, completely open mouthed and positively _filthy_ , mixed saliva smearing around their panting mouths.

Leaning up again and now opting to brace his hands on either side of Ian’s shoulders, his hands twisting into the sheets to hold on, Mickey silently gives the go ahead for Ian to start up again.

Once again, Ian jackhammers into Mickey’s tight hole, striking Mickey’s spot continuously with deadly precision. Mickey loses his breath for a moment, body drawn tight before letting out a loud and long moan.

“Iaann _nnn_ , _ssssss_ , oooh fuck, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum…” Mickey whimpers, trailing off with the force of pleasure slamming throughout his entire body.

“Yeah? You gonna cum all over me, Mick? You gonna cum without a single touch to your dick?”

“Yeeaahh, Christ, ahhh.”

“Yeah?” Ian questions again, eyebrows furrowing and toes curling with the way Mickey’s walls seem to be choking the life out of his dick, they’re squeezing around him so tight.

“Yesss _sss_.Yesyesyesyessss _sss_ , ohhhh, mmmnnn.” Aware of how loud they’re being, well specifically how loud he’s being, Mickey bites his lip harshly, quickly turning the light pink color, a dark and angry looking red.

Ian turns them on their sides and then manhandles Mickey so his body is hanging halfway over the side of the bed, and glides smoothly back into him. Holding tightly onto Mickey’s hips to prevent his fall, Ian begins pistoning furiously back into his husband, the slaps of their skin being heard loud and clear throughout the otherwise stillness of the night.

Mickey grabs a hold of Ian’s forearms, subconsciously knowing that Ian would never let him fall but doing so out of sheer reflex.

Ian leans down and licks hotly into and all around Mickey’s tomato red ear, before he noses his way against the soft, column of pale neck, and sucks and licks wetly a dark spot into the skin, right below Mickey’s ear.

Mickey’s letting out embarrassingly loud “yeah”’s at this point and Ian feels himself swell impossibly larger inside Mickey’s suffocating and hot, wet walls; he sounds so fucking good.

Pulling back slightly, Ian reaches over to the nightstand on the side of the mattress. Ian’s thankful that he and the guys were too lazy to set up any of the headboards and box springs of the beds because then they’d have to worry about the wall getting fucked up and the kids hearing their session, though Ian’s pretty sure that the kids already know what they’re up to this time at 1 A.M. since Ian was a kid once and staying up was one of the best things ever.

He fumbles with the lube for a couple of seconds but soon is able to get a steady hand on it, squirting out a messy amount of the clear liquid all over the place before rubbing his heavily coated hand all along his bare dick, jerking it a few times and hissing at the cold feeling before tossing it back in the direction of the table.

Mickey lets out a low, yet audible gasp once Ian sinks back inside, hands automatically flying back to their placement on his forearms. The heat generated from their activity mixing with the coolness of the lube sends pleasurable shivers down both of their spines and Mickey pulls his legs up to wrap snugly around Ian’s back.

“You feel so goddamn good, Mickey… _fuck_.”

Mickey huffs out a laugh, wishing he could relay a similar message back to Ian, but his brain’s refusing to cooperate at the moment. Ian’s slow and drawn out fucking is brushing teasingly against Mickey’s inner walls and he wonders why the fuck don’t they slow it down every once in a while if it’s going to feel this fucking mindblowing.

After a few minutes of the slow and tender thrusting, Ian enters into beast mode for the last time, fucking in and out of Mickey speedily, punching his spot with every inward stroke.

Mickey flings his head back so quickly it cracks, and Ian has the fleeting thought of never fucking in this position again if Mickey’s neck is going to crack like _that_ at the pinnacle of absolute pleasure, but it soon disappears when he sees that the other male is okay, _more_ than okay, going by the sound of his howls of pleasure.

“ _Ian_! Ohhhhhhoohhh, fuck! Oh my- fuckfuckfuck!”

“Yeah?” Ian knows Mickey’s about to cum and he ups the tempo of his powerful hips even more, now getting hysterical-sounding noises out of Mickey’s wide open mouth, saliva dripping down the sides and running into his wildly flinging hair, tears leaking down the sides of his face to mix in with his spit.

“Yeah…yeah…yeah….yeah…yeAHyEAH…” Mickey’s seems like he’s stuck on that one word and he increasingly gets louder the closer he gets to cumming and Ian grants him sweet mercy.

Along with his demon-like thrusting, Ian thrusts deeply and much harder into Mickey, brutally attacking his prostate and that silences Mickey’s cries altogether.

Ian feels Mickey’s toes curl against his back and Mickey’s body tightens and goes taut almost painfully, the whites of his eyes damn near completely showing, his captivating blue irises temporarily leaving the building.

The blood rushing to his head colliding with that of the rushing heat explodes within Mickey, leaving him breathless for a couple of seconds.

With a loud gasp escaping from Mickey’s raw throat, jets of white cum shoot out of Mickey’s twitching and red dick, splashing Mickey and Ian’s chest and a bit of it getting in Mickey’s hair and landing on the side of his mouth and on his quivering chin.

With the convulsing of Mickey’s pillowy walls going crazy around him, Ian lets out a loud and guttural groan, cumming so hard inside of Mickey, he shudders almost violently.

Ian’s the first one to recover, pulling himself gingerly out of the pliant body beneath him, and maneuvers Mickey back into a safe lying position against the pillows of the bed and he hops off of the mattress, landing on wobbly feet, and once he gets his footing, stumbles to their adjoining bathroom.

Coming back with a wet washcloth, Ian, out of his periphery, sees a dark shadow pass by their window outside of the house and he stops and cocks his head in wonder.

“What’s wrong?” Mickey’s hoarse voice cracking breaks through Ian’s confusion and he lets it go, pushing the strange moment to the back of his head and blaming it on his still thrumming body going through an afterglow.

“Nothing, baby. Good?” Mickey nods his head in answer and they smile at each other happily.

After cleaning both of themselves off as well as possible without having to jump into the shower tonight, Ian gets them under the white downy comforter and soft, red sheets, finally snuggling against one another in contentment.

A few minutes of silence drift by and both Mickey and Ian are well on their way to a deep and very comfortable sleep, until a loud creak makes their eyes slowly creep back open.

“Mick, you hear that?”

“Yeah. The fuck was that?”

They both lie there quietly, Ian still lazily wrapped around Mickey, both keeping an ear out to hear the noise again.

_Crreeeaakkkk_.

This time Ian lethargically sits up on one elbow, Mickey turning over onto his back and they stare at each other.

“Think it’s the kids?” Mickey muses.

“Nah, I don’t think so, they’re loud as hell when walking around at night, even when they’re trying to sneak in or out. This sounds like it’s trying to be quiet.”

“Well, it better not fuckin’ be any goddamn rats or raccoons or some nasty shit like that.”

“Mm-mm, that sound was a bit too heavy-set too belong to some furry little animal, baby,” Ian reasons, leaning down to give Mickey a peck on the lips, before settling back down into the covers and wrapping around Mickey from behind. “Whatever, it’s an old house, part of the reason why we got it so dirt cheap, and I’m too tired and fucked out to worry about it right now. Alright?”

“Alright.”

“Love you, Mickey.”

A few seconds of silence tick by.

“Love ya too, Ian.”

 

 

<http://cdnpix.com/show/imgs/462ea107f22467a35e1d891b2fbc822f.jpg> ~ Regan's hair; just picture it a darkish brown color with light brown highlights or something like that

<http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxpz46RnYp1qgu5fqo1_500.jpg> ~ Yevgeny's tattoo; it's pretty fucking awesome looking

 


	2. Chapter 2

“The fuck are your clothes?”

Regan looks up from her phone and pins her father with a confused expression, taking in the frown marring his pale features.

“What?”

“What do you mean “what”; what’s with the clothes? You goin’ to a hoe convention or somethin’?”

At this Dmitri, who’s leaning against the kitchen entrance lets out a snort and gives his sister a mocking smile when she turns to glare at him.

Turning back to her father, Regan answers. “I don’t understand, Dad, they’re just shorts and a t-shirt.”

Mickey’s eyes, full of disbelief, meet Ian’s, who in turns just shrugs his shoulders obviously amused by the whole situation, and continues with sipping at his coffee.

White high-waist shorts with frayed ends almost as if the rest of the jeans were ripped off, and Mickey internally rolls his eyes knowing that even damn near 20 years later, this stupid trend amongst teenage girls is still a ridiculous style, fits snugly around Regan’s waist. A royal blue crop top, with flared ends sits loosely on her upper body, showing a good portion of her stomach and the tops of her smooth shoulders. Her hair piled high on top of her head in a messy bun, copious amounts of different wrist bands and bracelets decorate her wrists, a couple of silver rings. Eyes once again outlined in make-up, though the color is now dark blue instead of the black she was wearing yesterday.

 _Probably to match with that fuckin’ shirt…fuck, she’s growing up_ … _fuckin’ Mandy_.

Mickey curses in his head and then turns to his oldest. “You’ve been lettin’ her leave the house with you guys like this? Are you outta your fuckin’ minds?”

Yevgeny just raises his hands carelessly, “She can take care of herself, and if something happens she knows where to find me and D.” He goes back to stuffing his face with a chocolate chip Pop-Tart, leaning on his elbows over the marble kitchen bar.

Mickey just sighs, drawing a hand over his face, annoyed at the possibility that his daughter has most likely been dressing like this for a while. The kids would always leave home at around 7 A.M. in the mornings for school and at that time Mickey and Ian would nine times out of ten still be in bed and just waking up. Ian didn’t have to be to work until 9 A.M., benefits of being an Exec. Manager at some big software gaming company, while Mickey didn’t have to go into his job until 1 P.M., benefits of acquiring his GED the moment he turned 21 and receiving a job as a nurse.

Nobody knew how Mickey had done it, not even Mickey knew how he got the job, as he was pretty sure he had to actually go to college for a few years or medical school; some shit like that in order to be a nurse. But at that time the hospital was severely understaffed and Mickey wanted a job that didn’t involve pimping or risking the opportunity for his fucking legs or arms to get crushed when working in construction, so he could be there for his kids like a responsible parent. So, they accepted him and he had to work with a manager like-mentor woman in order to get the ropes down and he had to do an assload of studying and tests after that before he officially gained the status of being a nurse.

It was commonly thought that the whole situation was so ironic that what with Mickey’s past badass notoriety he somehow became a nurse, someone who helps save lives and does everything in their power to make sure no harm comes to patients. Though those who really knew Mickey, knew that he could do it and that he was and actually can be a gentle and loving creature when he wanted to be, he was just really reluctant to show it.

Mickey’s thankful though that he rarely ever gets called in when it isn’t his shift. Over the last few years the hospital’s gained more staff, either transferred from another well-known hospital or just starting out. And he can say he honestly enjoys his job, and the people he works with as they’re funny as fuck and a couple of them even look up to him because of his no bullshit policy and his quick, angry reactions against impatient assholes or patients with minor injuries; either they could shut up or get the fuck out.

It’s a wonder he hasn’t been fired yet, but he does his job surprisingly well, despite the many different times he’s done something he’s pretty sure is actually illegal…no one has to know that though.

And according to Ian, he looks damn good in the light blue scrubs all of the nurses are supplied with, to which he’ll never admit out loud, but it always gets his blood racing whenever his husband gives him that look whenever he comes home clad in his scrubs.

But, back to the matter at hand.

“Go change your clothes, Ray.” Mickey says while typing on his phone.

“What? Why? Dad, we are now like, 50 minutes away from the school, and we don’t have time for me to go back and pick out an outfit! We’re going to end up being late!”

“I don’t care. You’re not leavin’ the house lookin’ like that…who bought you those clothes anyway?”

Regan tilts her head downwards so her father doesn’t see and rolls her eyes, she knows that he _hates_ when they roll his eyes at him.

“I bought them…with my _own_ money, from _my_ job. And Mom was even with me, with Aunt Mandy when I bought them. They _both_ said they liked the outfits I tried on.” She smugly says, crossing her arms across her ample bosom.

Ian and Mickey’s head shoot up, but then Ian scratches his head and lets out a little laugh.

“Huh, that’s actually not surprising,” Mickey gives him a glare and Ian stammers out, “Well…y’know with ‘Lana’s old profession and Mandy’s…uh…generous history with guys.”

“The fuck’s that got to do with skanky ass clothes?”

“’Cause less clothes attract more guys, Dad. _Goddamn_ , have you _seen_ some girls- sweet baby Jesus, I go to the bathroom like 10 times a day in that place. I mean…‘cause a man just can _not_ be teased like that-”

“Ay, shut the fuck up, D, I don’t wanna hear that shit,” Mickey says in disgust, turning back to his daughter, “And the fuck do you mean they both liked the outfits? Don’t they know you’re fuckin’ _16_?”

“Dad, girls younger than me walk around with far less clothes than what I have on now and their parents don’t say anything about it.”

“Does it look like I give two shits? I’m not their parents and you’re not their daughter. Now, go change your _fuckin_ ’ clothes.”

“It’s s’pposed to be 85 degrees today!” Regan exclaims outraged.

“Mick…just let her wear the clothes. She has a point about being late for school, and nobody has time for her to try on nine different outfits…just, I’m sure she’ll be responsible about her body, right, Regan?”

“Absolutely.” She immediately agrees, catching on when Ian stares at her pointedly.

“There, problem solved. Everybody pack up your shit and let’s go.” Ian says with finality, hopping off of the kitchen counter and clapping his hands together.

Regan scurries out of the kitchen before Mickey can say anything else, with Dmitri following behind her, disappointed that his sister didn’t get in more trouble and Yevgeny walking out the front door to stand by the truck.

Delivering a hard punch to Ian’s stomach, Mickey exclaims, “The fuck is your problem, Ian?”

“What?” Ian winces out, grabbing his stomach at the stinging pain. Shit, Mickey still punches like a brick fucking wall is being thrown.

“She looks like a fuckin’ whore! There’s no fuckin’ way she’s leavin’ the house lookin’ like she belongs in some shitty Playboy magazine.” Mickey goes to turn around and leave the kitchen to seek out Regan and go force her to change, but Ian gets a firm grip on his thick bicep.

“Come the fuck on, Mickey. We grew up in the Southside. And between our families, we never worried about how the girls dressed, we were always more worried about our fucked up relationships, trying to live off of less than the fucking poverty line, while at the same time making sure nobody gets their ass shot up on the block or some shit. You know what Regan has mixed in her? Fucking Gallagher blood and Milkovich blood, and I don’t give a fuck that she’s technically not a Gallagher, neither is ‘Geny and D, but they grew up around the Gallaghers and it’s even their last names, making them all one. No one fucks with the Gallaghers and no one fucks with the Milkoviches, which means she’s going to be fine.”

“It’s not about her not bein’ able to take care of herself, it’s about the fact that I’m her father and she’s walkin’ around here with her ass cheeks hangin’ out and showin’ more skin than a fuckin’ pornstar! I don’t wanna see that, especially as her father, fuck that!” Mickey slams his hand down on the counter creating a loud _slap_ sound.

“Well, Mick, what’re you gonna do about it? She’s growing up and if you try to put restrictions on her, she’s going to rebel like fucking crazy and I don’t even think I have the patience to deal with that bullshit.” Ian shakes his head, eyes wide and mockingly fearful. The thought of Regan rebelling has got to be one of their worst nightmares.

“Whoop her ass and throw out her clothes? That sounds like a valid solution…struttin’ around here like she’s the hottest bitch on the block, I don’t fuckin’ think so.” Mickey mutters the last part while stomping over to the fridge to grab a package of Jell-O.

Ian shakes his head, smile slipping on his face but when he sees Mickey’s shirt rise up, it quickly slips off, being replaced by worry.

“Shit, Mick. Doesn’t that hurt?”

Hand now holding the beloved Jell-O cup, Mickey raises his eyebrows in question. “Doesn’t what hurt?”

Ian walks over to him and slips his hand up the back of his husband’s shirt. Mickey tries to wiggle away from him but Ian holds him steady with his other hand on his hip. “There isn’t time to be gettin’ hot n’ heavy, Firecrotch, you pissed me off.”

Ian presses his fingers down and ignores Mickey’s statement. “This doesn’t hurt?” He presses down again, curious at Mickey’s lack of reaction.

“No, why, the fuck’s back there?” Mickey tries to crane his neck back to see.

Grabbing his hand, Ian leads Mickey out of the kitchen and into the living room where a large mahogany cabinet sits against the opposite wall by one of the large windows, with a massive mirror braced above it.

Mickey turns around, while Ian lifts up his shirt.

“Shit, where the hell did that come from?”

Towards the middle, two long shallow scratches are etched into the soft, milky-colored skin of Mickey’s lower back. The scratches appear an angry, light pink over Mickey’s calligraphed tattoo of the first initial of Ian’s name, which they both find a bit odd. Mickey runs over it with his fingers and shrugs his shoulders when he doesn’t feel any pain.

“Maybe if you cut those fuckin’ talons of yours while we’re fuckin’ it wouldn’t be there.”

“I bite my nails, Mick and these are way too sharp looking for it to be made by regular human nails.”

“You just got all the answers, don’t you? Floorboards creakin’, it’s an old house, scratches on my back, it’s not somethin’ human. The fuck, are we in a horror movie or some bullshit? You readin’ from a script?” Mickey teasingly asks, going over to the door to pull on his black ankle boots over his snug fitting jeans and grabbing the keys from the glass bowl sitting on a small stand by the wall.

“Fuck you, Mick, any idiot can tell what’s what when they hear or see some weird shit. It’s right over your tramp stamp too, did’ya notice that?” Ian says amused, pulling on his own converse sneakers, making sure he had his wallet and everything before closing the door and locking it behind him.

“Ay, it’s not a fuckin’ tramp stamp,” Mickey punches Ian in his arm. “I told you to stop callin’ it that.”

Ian begins hysterically laughing and he jumps into the passenger seat of the truck, Mickey sliding into the driver’s side.

“But it’s basically my name right above your ass-crack, Mickey!”

The kids in the back seat look up in horror, not wanting to know what the two adults were talking about.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Mickey turns the radio on, turning it up a few notches, leans over the console over onto Ian’s side and whispers in his ear. “Or you won’t have to worry about seein’ it again since last night will be the _last_ time you ever get to fuck me for a _long_ time, Firecrotch.” Mickey gives a slow, hot, and wet lick over the shell of Ian’s ear and with a satisfied smirk, sits back into his seat, pulling out of the driveway when he hears the kids’ protests about too much PDA coming from the backseat.

-

“Alright, your mom is pickin’ you guys up,” Mickey explains pulling into a space in the large parking lot of the crappy school he sure as hell doesn’t miss. “So, fuckin’ get out here at a reasonable time, I don’t feel like hearin’ her bitch my ear off, got it?”

They all nod and pile out of the back of the truck, grabbing up their bags.

Mickey watches them go off into their own little groups of friends and starts thinking over whether or not he should start dropping them off at school more often again. Since ‘Geny got his car at 16, he’s been driving himself, his brother and sister to school and from school and to wherever they want to go and hang with their friends. Before he got his car, Svetlana would take them and pick them up, since Mickey was still always sleeping in bed with Ian that time in the morning when the kids had to get to school, while Svetlana was already awake and dressed for her job as a private secretary for some big business hot shot that Mickey still couldn’t care enough to remember the name of.

Mandy would sometimes accompany her, but Ian got her a job at the company where he works, as an office worker, which means that she didn’t have to go in until a bit later like Ian does, which also means that she wants more sleep when she can take it, who doesn’t?

Mickey stopped participating in taking the kids to school around middle school after a mishap with some dumb bitch and her shitty driving and her and Mickey having a hate-filled, shouting match across the parking lot…yeah, it was pretty fucking insane and pointless, but the bitch thought she could just hop her piece of shit car in front of his truck like everything was okay in the world, she had another thing coming that day.

But looking at his kids now, he can see that the people they hang around look like straight-up schmucks. Dmitri and Regan actually stand in a large circle of friends, though the circle is filled with whorish-looking, dumb broads and pot-head-looking dickheads. Mickey curls his lip when he sees that the girls have on clothes that are worse than Regan’s and that some of the dudes are feeling all over a couple of the clueless girls.

“So, we just gonna sit here, and stare at them like we’re retarded or we gonna leave?” Ian questions, hands gesturing around him in a sign that they have shit they’ve got to do.

“What’s the fuckin’ rush? We called out of work today, we have plenty of time to get shit done. Just wait a couple’a minutes.”

“Well, at least let me drive.” Ian gets out of the truck and walks around to the driver’s side, opening the door.

Mickey finally turns his attention back to Ian, eyebrows raised, yet climbing over the seat to the passenger side childishly. “Why you always wanna drive? It make you feel restless to be in the passenger seat or somethin’?”

“Nope,” Ian smiles while slamming the door behind him. “Just wanna leave open the opportunity to get some road-head.”

Mickey scoffs and rolls his eyes. “In your dreams, Firecrotch. Last time I did that, you almost killed us with your reckless ass.”

“I was partially drunk, Mick. That, plus your dick-sucking skills plus driving a fucking car equals an early arrival either beyond the pearly gates of heaven or to the fire and brimstone reserved for hell. We so have to try it again, while I’m sober.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Mickey glances back out the window and is about to turn back to Ian to gesture to him to drive but then he quickly snaps his attention back. “ _Son of a fuckin’ bitch_.” He hisses out.

There, in their midst of friends, a tall, wiry-looking motherfucker, who already looks like a sleaze-ball in Mickey’s eyes, has his arms wrapped around Regan.

His hands though…his hands are clutching tightly onto her ass, while her arms are looped around the dude’s neck, their mouths sealed sloppily against one another.

“What- _oh_.” Ian says dumbly. But then he feels his blood boil. The fact that this kid is feeling all over his daughter like she’s a fucking treat has him pushing open the door and stepping out, his face a calm façade, yet inside a storm roaring up from beneath.

He vaguely hears Mickey calling out his name but he ignores it, instead he steps up to the interlocked teens and clears his throat. They don’t hear him.

So, he reaches out a hand and taps the young guy on the shoulder two times. That gets his attention and he breaks away from Regan, lips parting with a loud suction-like _smack_.

“Fuck you want?” He sneers.

“Dad? What’s up?” Regan asks nervously. She thought they had left already, damn.

“This Ginger’s your Dad? You guys don’t even look alike, how the fuck does that work?” A couple of the guy’s friends laugh, the ones who’ve tuned into the situation, while the girls giggle, like he just told one of the greatest and funniest jokes of all time.

“Shut the fuck up, Drew.” Regan hisses, elbowing him roughly.

Ian cocks his head at this. “Ohh, _you’re_ the Drew Maxen guy. Yeah, we heard about you.”

“We?” Drew asks.

“Yeah, me and Ray’s other dad, Mickey. And I’m Ian.”

“Uh, nice to meet you, man. Can I-uh…help you with somethin’?”

“Yeah…well, no actually. You can help _yourself_ by getting your no good, filthy fucking hands off of my daughter,” Ian takes Drew’s shocked silence as acceptance and turns to his horrified daughter. “Now, Ray, get your ass into that school,” seeing that she’s about to say something, Ian holds his hand up, the sun glinting off of the dark ink tatted on the inside of his wrist, and continues. “I’m not going to tell you to stay away from him ‘cause I don’t know if you guys really like each other,” _I doubt it_ , Ian thinks, “or what, but I’m not gonna just stand by and watch this dude feel you up like that, understand?”

Regan nods her head, and Ian watches in fascination. Ian doesn’t think anyone’s ever seen Regan embarrassed and he wonders how she achieves that. Even when she came barging into Mickey and Ian’s bedroom during a particularly…wild and sexy night, claiming that she got her period, she just walked right back out, leaving the door open after her, like nothing out of the ordinary happened.

She turns and with an apologetic shrug in Drew’s direction, she struts with her head held high into the open school doors. Ian’s a couple steps ahead of the dude, and he quickly grabs Drew’s arm right before his hand makes contact with Regan’s ass.

This guy definitely has some balls.

 _That needs to be fixed_. Ian decides.

-

Back in the truck, Mickey has his arm hanging out of the open window, thumb brushing up against the paint, watching the scene between his husband and this cocky little shit play out.

Feeling a prickly, tingly sensation on the back of his neck, Mickey perks up in his seat and quickly looks around himself. Hundreds of students making their way to the school doors, a couple dozen kids just hanging around smoking regular cigarettes or spliffs; no one out of the ordinary.

But it still feels like someone’s seriously burning a hole in the back of his fucking neck and as soon as he pinpoints the person, he’s going to _blow_ a hole in the back of their fucking _head_ in a second with the pistol he keeps hidden in the back of the glove compartment if they don’t move the fuck along.

When Mickey turns back around, ready to shake off the feeling, he notices that not a single person is outside the school any longer.

“The fuck?” Mickey slowly opens the car door, but not before reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out the aforementioned gun.

Venturing away from the car, Mickey looks around incredulously; there’s just no way everyone got inside that quickly and that quietly without Mickey even realizing…and where the fuck is Ian?

Mickey gets that sensation again and rolls his neck around in annoyance, looking around himself anxiously and makes sure that his gun is tucked safely into the back of his pants, safety on and hidden from view. But before he gets any further away from the truck, he decides against it, thinking that maybe Ian went inside to talk to someone or some shit.

He then gets back inside the vehicle, tucking the gun back into its hiding spot and relaxing back as much as can in the passenger seat, but he couldn’t…it’s just way too damn quiet.

Five minutes pass…ten minutes….fifteen…

Mickey gets out and makes his way into the school, shaking his head when no one approaches him to ask what the fuck he was doing there, _this place just hasn’t changed_.

Bigfoot itself could stomp in and nobody would bat a fucking eyelash.

Walking around, Mickey tries to find his husband as they still have to do a bit of grocery shopping and set up the bedposts in all of the bedrooms and shit. He didn’t want to call out his name since it’s unnecessary to draw attention to himself and just resolves to see if he can find him in the administrators’ offices or something.

The halls are deserted…completely barren and vacant of any student or teacher or visitor besides Mickey. And as Mickey passes the classrooms, he realizes that it’s completely silent in every single room as well.

Unless every single class inside the whole damn school decided to take a test that day, there’s just no reason for everything to seem like a death just occurred.

After rounding a corner, Mickey comes to a complete stop and he suddenly wishes he hadn’t put that gun back.

At the end of the hallway, there’s a man standing there, facing the wall, not moving…yet something is off about him, very off.

He’s dressed in a pitch black suit and his head resembles that of the craters on the fucking moon; large spots grey and just…sickly looking splayed all over his nearly bald head. And what little hair the guy has is white and long, wayward and scraggly.

Now, Mickey isn’t a coward, but there’re times when you need to trigger your flight response instead of fight, especially when you don’t have a weapon and at this moment, Mickey’s flight alert is sounding the alarm bells within his head. Mickey can fight, how could he not? Southside born and bred and a fucked up family behind him, it’s ingrained in his blood, but something about this guy is just screaming at Mickey to just turn and walk away.

“ _Where’re you going_?” A voice, a deep, very _deep_ and _dark_ voice whispers out softly.

Mickey feels his skin crawl when he realizes that the man who’s still standing at the end of the hallway, still facing away from Mickey, is now a couple of feet closer.

Not bothering to answer, Mickey just slowly backs around the corner until the guy is out of his sight and he then decides to go back and wait in the car because this shit is admittedly creeping him the fuck out and he refuses to end up like 98% of horror movie characters because they believe going to check something out is the smartest thing to do. Fuck that.

The moment he turns the corner to go back however, there’s the man again…standing all the way at the end of the hall, back facing Mickey.

“Alright man, the fuck you want?” Mickey questions, now irritated with the whole situation.

He just wanted to find Ian and get their day over with, not stand here and deal with this dick-wad who obviously has nothing better to do than to fuck with Mickey.

The man doesn’t say anything and Mickey, once again goes to turn on a different hallway to get away from this creepy ass dude but what the actual fuck? This dude is there again!

Though Mickey really doesn’t want to go anywhere near this guy…or thing…whatever the fuck it is, Mickey’s not some helpless little bitch, and if it comes down to it, then he’ll fight, he’ll probably lose…but he will fight.

So, he walks down the hall towards the man, but sticks to the far right side making it so that he essentially has the right side of his body plastered against the wall all the while he’s walking.

He’s getting closer and closer and closer and Mickey lets out a small scoff thinking that this shit’s ridiculous and comes to the conclusion that he should quit it with the horror movies since obviously his life is on track to becoming one.

Mickey stumbles over his steps when he tunes back into the matter at hand and sees that there’s no one there before him any longer, but he doesn’t stop, he continues determined to get the fuck out of there.

Quickening his pace, Mickey eventually reaches one of the side doors that he had came in through earlier and without looking back he pushes open the door and crosses the threshold to outside.

Letting the door slam shut behind him, Mickey lets out a sigh of relief but it then trails off into a startled yelp when he feels a hand clench tightly into his hair and yank it back harshly.

Mickey places his hands flat on the door behind him and uses all his strength to brace himself to try and pull his head back away from the clutch, but it’s like his hair is stuck between the gears of some heavy ass machinery or shit.

And it fucking _hurts_ like a son of a baby bitch.

Neck muscles straining under the force of the pull, Mickey grits his teeth against the pain and reaches a hand back to grasp onto the one tangled in his hair and freezes when he doesn’t feel anything.

Not a single finger, not a single hand, not even a single fucking _arm_.

“Holy fuckin’-” Mickey doesn’t panic as he knows that’s one of the worst things to do in any situation, mainly an unfathomable one like this and he refuses to call out for help…he can take care of himself goddammit.

And if Ian’s out there looking for him, then he can wait a little longer…it serves him fucking right for having Mickey get out of the car and go search for _his_ ass only to end up with his hair in an invisible fucking vice.

Having had enough, Mickey braces his hands once again against the metallic door and pulls his head forward as much as he can only to have it yanked back and this time his head painfully knocks against the door with a resounding thud.

It would’ve knocked him out if he hadn’t had worse happen to him in his fucking childhood to toughen him up and if he wasn’t so set on getting the fuck away from this thing.

“Get the _fuck_ -” Mickey again pulls his head forward and though at this point it feels like his head is being pinched with the sharpest nail in a fucking toolbox with how long his hair has been in this thing’s grasp, he fights it and with a loud gritty scream he wrenches himself free and falls forward onto his knees on the cement.

Stinging, sharp tingles radiate throughout his entire head and Mickey can detect a splitting headache making its debut in a few seconds. Taking a few breaths to get his breathing back under control, he collects himself and slowly stands up, turning to look at the door that he just escaped from not even a minute ago.

He’s surprised he doesn’t see a chunk of his hair lying on the ground but what we sees stops him cold.

There in the small rectangular window, a man, not the same one that was in the hallways but a different, much more attractive man stood there staring at Mickey.

The way he’s staring though…it’s unnerving.

Short, curly light brown hair, hazel eyes with an aristocratic nose, small mouth and broad shoulders is all that Mickey can see as the rest of the guy’s body is obscured from view thanks to the door.

But the man has his eyes trained on Mickey like he wants to _gobble_ him up; in a hungry sort of way or a sexual way, Mickey’s not sure which but it’s eerie as fuck.

What’s even more eerie is the fact that the dude’s hazel eyes are just _staring_ at Mickey, not even blinking for fuck’s sake.

It seems like an eternity before the dude makes his first move. A hand comes up to press against the glass and Mickey’s eyes widen in shocked horror…instead where human fingernails should be, there’re fucking _claws_ , actual claws like a damn animal but they’re pitch black claws, instead of white or yellow or some rational lightish color.

When Mickey looks back to the dude’s face, however, that’s when he throws his pride to the wind and breaks into a _sprint_ back to the truck.

The guy’s eyes had turned completely black…the color of nothingness and his tongue was licking all over the glass window.

His fucking tongue was the same color as his claws and eyes, and it was forked like that of a snake’s. It’s mouth was curved up in a sinister smile and Mickey could just tell that that…thing…whatever the fuck it was, was not only looking at Mickey like he was a full course meal but he was looking at him like he wanted to slide deep inside of Mickey until he screamed his throat _raw_.

So, Mickey hauled ass and when he gets back to the truck, he jumps into the driver’s seat ready to just _go_ regardless of whether or not Ian’s still in the school, because Mickey has that distinct feeling that this creature wants him and him alone, not any one of his family members.

A whispering, humming sound emanates from somewhere behind him , making Mickey’s body tense as the most awful sense of dreadfulness washes over him, leaving his hair standing on end.

Mickey steels himself and with great trepidation lifts his eyes up to the rearview mirror…

Nothing’s there.

Mickey slumps against the leather seat in relief, willing his heart to slow the fuck down; it’s beating so hard that he can feel it pulsing throughout his whole body, and he runs his hands over his face but a malevolent chuckle sounds right next to his ear.

“ _Why’d you leave me_?”

Slowly removing his hands from his face, Mickey’s eyes meet empty eye sockets embedded in on what seems to be a melting face, head and face similar-looking to that of the fucking crypt-keeper’s and Mickey vaguely realizes that this is the same…thing…that was stalking Mickey in the halls; he just never saw its face…but now that he’s staring directly at it, his blood curls…

And he lets out a loud shriek as the thing rushes towards him, decaying arms outstretched and mouth opening wide to show sharp, yellow rows of teeth and a black substance pouring out of its mouth, in the small space of the truck.

“ _IANNNN_!”


	3. Chapter 3

“MICKEY!”

Mickey’s body jerks with a gasp in the passenger seat and he hears blood-curdling screaming, only to catch onto the fact that it’s _him_ who’s making all of that noise.

“Mickey…Mickey, I’m here…what’s wrong?!” Ian frantically asks.

Ian had finished verbally lashing at that fuck-head that was hanging all over Regan and he really wanted to put the asshole in his place but he’s 34 years old, he can’t exactly go around punching kids’ lights the fuck out, though he’s positive that no one would necessarily care, especially on this part of town.

He was watching the dude and his little friends walk into the school, when he heard a loud heart-stopping scream sound somewhere from behind him and despite the fact that Ian’s never really heard his husband scream in abject terror like that, he could recognize that hoarse-filled voice anywhere.

Running back to the truck like his ass was on fire, Ian ignored the spectators who had now stopped in their tracks on their way inside the school to see what was going on, and he rushed to Mickey’s side.

Grabbing onto Mickey’s arm, he winces and immediately pulls his hand away when he feels how hot Mickey is to the touch.

Mickey’s still screaming, his eyes clenched shut and his body fighting off an indiscernible force, fists swinging wildly.

Once again, Ian grabs onto both of Mickey’s arms and ignores the heat and shakes him the slightest bit to get him to snap out of whatever the fuck has him terrified like this.

Ian screamed Mickey’s name and that seemed to get his attention.

His eyes snap open and Ian feels his heart give a lurch at the _fear_ in Mickey’s eyes; it’s rare that he sees a look like that in Mickey’s eyes.

And Ian wonders…

What in the fucking world did Mickey see to put that look into his eyes?

-

“Shit, Mickey… you alright?” Ian asks as he and Mickey walk around the supermarket.

Mickey had relayed the whole story…nightmare…whatever the fuck one wanted to call it, to Ian after Mickey calmed himself down enough to share.

Glancing down at the list that he had pulled out of his pocket earlier, and making a left with the dark grey shopping cart, Mickey answers, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah…I mean it felt so fucking real but I’m fine. I ain’t gonna be a little bitch about it.” Rubbing the back of his head where the hand in his nightmare was holding onto so tightly in his hair, Mickey winces at the ache still radiating there.

Ian notices the rubbing and places his large hand on the spot and massages it gently.

“That feel better?”

Letting out a sigh and leaning his back into the touch, Mickey nods his head. “Yea…thanks.”

Ian can tell that Mickey’d rather not talk about anything relating to that horrific experience anymore so he drops it and moves onto something else to talk about, though his worry over his husband is still at the forefront of his mind.

“So, you gonna cook for everyone tomorrow, or what?”

Mickey throws a couple of boxes of cereal into the cart and moves onto the next aisle. “Hell no, it’s way too hot to turn the oven or stove on and cook. They can bring shit from home if they want home-cooked meals and shit.”

Ian chuckles and follows Mickey around as he navigates around the store. “Well, we actually have AC now and it’s always cool in the house anyway; I’m sure it won’t get too hot.”

“Nah, it’s too much work.” Mickey disagrees while throwing three packs of Jell-O into the car oblivious to Ian’s raised eyebrows.

“We can grill outside. I’m sure Kevin and Lip would help, probably even Charlie too. And then for dessert, you can make those pastry thingies.” Ian suggests.

“…Maybe and what “pastry thingies”?”

“Those Russian pastries you make whenever you’re in a really good mood.”

Mickey takes a second to think about it as they walk to the freezer aisle to get a couple of tubs of ice cream; Mickey’s got to have _the_ worst sweet tooth that Ian’s ever been knowledgeable of.

“Oh, the Hvorost? Hm, didn’t think about that.”

“Well now that I’ve mentioned it, can you make them? They’re so fucking good.” Ian pleads.

“We’ll see how I feel, Firecrotch.” Mickey says absently as he scoops up a couple of cans of whipped cream but then lets out a protest when Ian takes them from his hands.

“I think that’s enough with the sweets, Mick. You’re gonna end up in a diabetic coma or some shit.”

Snatching the cans back from the Ginger’s hands, Mickey looks up at his husband with a sly smirk. “Who says it’s for me to eat?” With that Mickey continues onto another aisle.

Ian’s eyes widen before his eyes darken a shade and he follows after the shorter male and gives him a slap on his ass, causing Mickey to turn around and fix him with an intense stare.

“You didn’t get enough from last night, Mick?”

“I can never get enough of you, you know that.”

“Wow…that was corny.” Ian’s answered with a backhand to his abdomen.

“Fuck you, you know you like it.”

Ian wraps an arm around Mickey’s waist and leans down to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“Of course.”

-

A loud gasp breaks through the silence of the room as Ian pulls himself out of the shuddering body beneath him and collapses onto sheet-mussed bed beside him.

After finishing their grocery shopping, the two men drove back home to put the groceries away but decided to go out and get some breakfast since they had only cups of coffee for breakfast, well Mickey had a cup of Jell-O, the normal people had some classic good ol’ coffee.

It was a silence-filled breakfast, not uncomfortable just content in enjoying their food and watching one of the many T.V.’s facing their booth. Ian knew that Mickey was still a bit on edge from that nightmare and how and why the fuck he had a dream when he didn’t even remember falling asleep or the fact that he could still feel the pain that he suffered in the dream.

And Ian had the over-whelming feeling to protect Mickey and to take his mind off of the nightmarish incident, despite the fact that Mickey is more than capable of taking care of himself but Ian just wanted to take his fear away.

Ian had placed his hand over Mickey’s, his thumb rubbing over the skin of the older male’s hand and was secretly glad when Mickey didn’t pull his hand away or look around to see if anyone was watching, though it’s been _years_ since Mickey has last done that, it never ceases to warm Ian’s heart that they’re relationship has progressed this far with all of the bullshit they’ve gone through.

But Mickey understood the meaningful caress and they finished their meals to quickly drive home and make their way towards the bedroom. The pace wasn’t quick or frenetic like it is most of the time, it instead was slow and passionate and _tender_ , which had both Mickey and Ian’s emotions syncing up in an intense loving embrace.

Mickey’s soft exhalations and near-silent mewls and Ian’s whispered declarations of love and reassurances in Mickey’s ear…it was evidently one of their more ardent-filled sexual moments.

“Mmph…that had to be one of the gayest things we ever did.” Yet Mickey can admit that that session made him feel a whole lot better and more lax than he did a couple of hours before.

“Right. I’m sure that’s more gay than me constantly dicking you or you trying to gobble my dick down your fucking throat.” Ian sarcastically replies, cleaning themselves off with a couple of tissues pulled from one of the bedside drawers.

“Fuck off.” Mickey says without any real bite.

“…You okay, babe?” Ian hesitatingly asks after a brief lapse of silence.

“Yea…I do feel a _lot_ better. Thank you.” Mickey admits, pulling Ian down to push their lips against one another in a couple of sweet kisses.

“Hmmm,” Ian hums and licks his lips when Mickey breaks the kiss to flop back down on the bed. “I think that was the most I’ve ever heard you give your gratitude for something in only a few of hours.”

Flipping Ian the finger, Mickey closes his eyes and lets his body sink into the soft dark crimson sheets, yet tunes back in when Ian begins talking again.

“We should probably clean up and set the bedposts up before ‘Lana and the kids get here.”

But they lay there for about 15 more minutes, each reflecting on their own thoughts…

Before the sound of heavy-thudding footsteps sound above their heads breaks through their pleasant and satiated silence.

Mickey and Ian look at each other, eyebrows raising in wonder.

 _Thud_. _Thud_. _Thud_.

Ian stands up from the bed silently, Mickey shadowing him.

 _Thud_. _Thud_. _Thud_ … _Thud_. _Thud_. _Thud_.

“Well, I guess this is the part where we decide whether or not to go and check what the fucking hell that noise is.” Ian jokes.

“I’ll tell you this much,” Mickey starts moving to the direction of their bathroom, “I’m jumping in the shower, but you can go check that freaky shit out if you want and get your body chopped up into bloody pieces; me on the other hand, I’m not interested.”

“Aw, is Mickey Mouse _scared_?” Ian mocks following after his husband.

“Fuck. Off.” Mickey turns the knobs in the shower and steps in.

Ian laughs and hops in after him.

“I guess we got a haunted house, Mick.”

“No shit, Sherlock…that’s the last thing we need on top of smart and horny-assed teenagers, some fucked up ghost being an overall pain in the fuckin’ ass.” Lathering soap all over his body and throughout his hair, Mickey frowns deeply.

“Don’t be like that…it’s probably old piping or some shit like that.”

“I sure fuckin’ hope so…I’m not particularly hard-up for movin’ again so soon, and I doubt that we have enough money right now.”

All joking aside, both Mickey and Ian know that it would be stupid of them to go and try to investigate unless they wanted to end up on the fucking news or some bullshit like that. They both know that they’d be the first to be ready to go and kick ass, pulling out a few weapons they’ve kept over the years hidden all over their room, but at the same time something’s telling them not to…something’s telling them to just let this shit run its course until it gets bored and crosses to the other side when it realizes it can’t get a rise out of the Gallagher family.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, they’ve been through shit storm after shit storm, the fuck can some dumbass ghost do?

-

“What’s up, fuckers?!” Mandy Milkovich shouts out as her niece opens the door with the key that Mickey and Ian had given out to all of their kids a couple of weeks ago.

“Hey! Where’s ‘Lana and the boys?” Ian questions as he treks down the stairs after hearing the loud yell, greeting his daughter and his best friend/sister-in-law, giving Mandy a hug.

“She’s making them get our bags out of the car.”

“Oh- wait, what? You guys are staying here?”

“Yep! Isn’t it great? Aunt Mandy and Mom said that they’ll take me shopping more and we’ll hang out and I just can’t wait!” Regan squeals excitedly.

Growing up around four other males can be awesome but sometimes a girl needs some feminine input in their lives, and with an aunt like Mandy and a mother like Svetlana, Regan gets to see a lot of cool shit and gets to really do whatever she likes, since she seriously believes that her fathers are frightened or at least intimidated by her mother.

Regan remembers going out on trips with her aunt and mother and despite the fact that they were gay for one another and were together, they would help Regan scout out boys and encourage her to get this and that when it came to buying things.

Sometimes they get up to some crazy mischief like that one time Regan, Svetlana and Mandy all ended up being in handcuffs, sitting on the sidewalk outside some restaurant because some douche had some shit to say about Mandy and Svetlana kissing and Regan went _off_ on them, with Svetlana and Mandy joining in when the dude and his friends wouldn’t back down.

By the time the police got involved, a full fucking fight had taken place throughout half of the restaurant by people who weren’t even originally involved in the argument.

So, the Gallagher and the Milkovich women along with around eight other dudes were dragged down to the police station and by the time Mickey and Ian got there…well let’s just say Mickey tore down the fucking walls of the station with how angry he was. Svetlana and Mickey had to be pulled apart by three buffed up security guards and it was just not a pretty sight.

“Does Mickey know?” Ian queries and walks to the living room to plop down on the love seat, noticing Svetlana, Dmitri and Yevgeny stepping into the house, the boys’ arms weighed down by some heavy looking bags.

“Course not.” Svetlana answers, gesturing to the boys to leave the bags by the front door and they gladly drop them, cringing at their mother’s glare before heading to the kitchen to search for some snacks to devour.

“Well…he’ll be happy.” Ian frowns knowing that he’ll probably have to hear Mickey bitch and moan in his ear all night long about the two women staying there, which leads him to ask another question. “How long you guys staying?”

“Hm…until we get bored, I guess. We need a vacation from our stuffy-ass place.” Mandy explains nonchalantly, taking Regan’s bun out and starting to play with it.

“You and Mom should definitely move in with us. It gets annoying being the only girl in a house-full of boys.” Regan complains.

Ian shakes his head, smile forming on his lips. “Mickey wouldn’t like that and you know it, Ray.”

“Well, he’ll deal.” Svetlana goes to join her girlfriend on the couch, crossing her legs and placing both of her arms over the back of the couch.

Ian looks at the two women before him, decidedly amused by them.

At 39 years old, Svetlana still remains classically beautiful and though she looked like a broken doll when Ian and Mickey first saw her, she’s done well for herself. Voluptuous body clad in white skintight skinny jeans with black-strappy stilettos covering her black painted feet and a dark red, short-sleeved loose blouse covering her torso. Her lips painted that characteristic deep red, her once-again dark brown hair straightened, hanging to the middle of her back. Her Zirconian-colored eyes outlined in dark eyeliner and mascara, the slightest hint of eye shadow completing the look.

Ian knows that if he wasn’t happily gay and in love, he would definitely be drooling over the ex-whore, exotic Russian beauty.

And then looking at Mandy…she’s looks like she can strike a man dead with one glance in their direction.

Shorts in similar appearance to Regan’s, but only in the standard blue-jean color, sit on Mandy’s hips. White gladiator sandals cover her feet, the straps extending all the way up to her pale, mid-calves. A clingy black top with the white lettering of ‘FUCK YOU’ covers her upper body while her make-up consists of the same colored eyeliner and mascara as Regan and Svetlana’s, lips painted blood red like ‘Lana’s. Mandy had cut her hair a few years ago, so it now sits a couple of centimeters above her shoulders, in a wavy-like bob, her bangs hanging over her forehead attractively.

Her nose piercing remained a constant throughout the years and she’s even gotten a few more with one stud occupying the top of her left eyebrow as well as a tongue-piercing that she had tried to convince Mickey to get one with her, claiming that it made no sense that he had tattoos but no piercings; he, of course, had constantly refused. After getting tired of her pestering, Mickey agreed to get a piercing but not any place where it was easily visible.

He had instead settled with only getting his right nipple pierced to Ian’s pleasure. Mandy had called him weak and that that was a pussy piercing for him to get to which he had happily told her to fuck off to. Ian knows he doesn’t wear it as much because according to him, it makes his nipple way too fucking sensitive to be going out in public lest he wanted to walk around with a gigantic boner in his pants at the slightest brush from his shirt up against the piercing.

Ian has to quickly will away those thoughts about Mickey’s nipple piercing as he feels himself start to get hard when he began to reminisce about all the times he made Mickey come undone with a few teasing licks and sucks to his nipple while he was wearing the little sterling loop or barbell.

He’s glad that Svetlana and Mandy decided to pursue a relationship with one another and he knows that Mickey’ll never admit it, but he knows that he’s happy for both Mandy _and_ Svetlana that they found someone who doesn’t treat them like dog shit.

After Mickey, Lip, Ian and Mickey and Mandy’s older brothers helped force that piece of shit Kenyatta out of Mandy’s life with some pretty violent threats and beat-downs, as well as Svetlana’s scary, monotonous threat of pissing in his mutilated skull and delivering it to anyone that the bastard may know, Svetlana and Mandy got closer and closer.

The Rub-N-Tug business still continues but most of the whores that were there years ago moved, surprisingly, onto bigger and better things, most of them going home with their clients and making the decision to stay with them. The business’s gotten bigger actually, with Kevin and Veronica now managing it, and more whores that seek work yet shelter and a secure spot away from abusive pimps and shitty living circumstances go to Kev and V. They make sure none of the whores have any serious disease that’ll spread to clientele by getting them tested and if they are infected with something then they’ll turn the women down, and though it sounds depressing and heartless, it’s sometimes the sacrifice of big business and for the safety of the bar’s customers.

There are times when V gives the turned away whores money to get some medicine or to visit a hospital because she can’t imagine her or either of her own baby girls being in a fucked up situation like that, with no one to help.

But Svetlana wanted out of the business when she and Mandy started their relationship and it was by sheer luck that some random dude approached her while she was counting out her money after forcing a dude who refused to pay up by kicking him harshly in the balls, and claimed that she would be a great asset to his company.

Without second thought, she accepted, wanting to do right by her then three year old ‘Geny as well as her struggling new girlfriend.

And years later, still working at the same company bringing home an average of over $30 grand a month and with Mandy making a good sum of money as well at the gaming company Ian had gotten her a job at only a few years prior, the two women were doing pretty fucking good.

“Where’s Dad anyway?” Ian hears Dmitri ask as he sinks down beside him on the loveseat, shoveling Doritos down his gullet.

“He’s upstairs, taking a nap, he wasn’t feeling well after we finished with the beds and cleaned up the house a little.” Ian says, letting out a sigh.

“He okay?” Mandy asks, eyebrows furrowed in worry.

“Yeah, I think he just has a headache or something.”

Mandy nods her head, still playing in her niece’s hair, while Svetlana speaks up. “This is nice house but feels weird…cold and empty. How much it cost?”

Ian shrugs his shoulders, looking around. “About $25 grand.”

All eyebrows in the living room raise, stunned at the small price.

“For this house?” Yevgeny asks.

“Yep. There was probably a murder here or some shit, that’s probably why the cost was so low.” Ian replies.

“No way…something else had to have happened here besides some measly murder,” Mandy reasons. “There’s just no way a house this nice looking cost less than at least $300 grand.”

“Whatever…we bought it dirt fucking cheap, it’s better than that fucking box that me, Mick and the kids were living in.” Ian picks up the remote and turns on the flat-screen mounted on the living room wall, flipping through the channels to find something to watch.

“If I see one fucking ghost or hear some weird shit, you guys better believe that this’ll be the last time I ever visit.” Mandy says jokingly.

Everyone laughs and Ian gets up to go grab some beers.

Coming back and getting himself comfortable again he turns to Mandy and Svetlana. “I’ll show you guys where you can sleep when Mick gets up, I don’t wanna wake him.”

Satisfied, Mandy and Svetlana settle back against the sofa sipping their beers and catch up on what’s new in the kids’ lives, while Ian silently preoccupies his mind with Mickey and whether or not he’s alright.

-

Drifting up the darkened stairwell and gliding into the closed bedroom door, Mickey lays underneath the covers, peacefully asleep.

In the corner of the large room, a shadow of a man stands there…staring intently at the prone figure in the bed.

A forked tongue slithers out, licking its lips, sharp teeth glinting off of the dawn setting taking place outside of the windows, wide and creepy smile appearing on the hidden face.

It then disappears in a black smoke-filled cloud once it sees Mickey’s eyes start to flutter awake.

 

<http://everydayrussian.com/> ~ Hvorost; in case anyone's curious to see what it is, just scroll down until you see 'Deep Fried Pastries'; it looks good as hell, seriously.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy Shit. Big ass thanks to everyone leaving comments on this story and the kudos, I appreciate each and every one of them.
> 
> Shit's about to take a turn soon, as this chapter and the last three are just filler chapters, to give you guys a feel for what's going on and understand the family dynamics as well as the creepiness.

Eyes widening, Mickey’s hand flies up to his mouth and he rushes from the bed, sprinting into the bathroom to regurgitate the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

A smell…like fucking _Death_ itself had invaded Mickey’s nostrils just seconds after he woke up and it had to be the most overwhelmingly _putrid_ and _pungent_ scent that Mickey had ever had the displeasure of experiencing. He wonders if what Ian had said about there being no furry little fuckers running around the house is true or not because it really smelled like a horde of those shits were slaughtered and left out in hot as balls weather.

His body is propelled further over the toilet as violent gagging shakes his whole form. Once he feels like his stomach has settled down and he can lean up for more than a few seconds without getting the strong need to puke, he slowly composes himself and gets to his feet shakily. After flushing the toilet, Mickey tries to brush the taste out of his mouth with his toothbrush at the sink.

“Hey- what’s wrong?” Ian steps into the bathroom, his worried eyes settling on the slumped over figure by the sink.

He came up the stairs to wake Mickey up and let him know that ‘Lana and Mandy are here but when he didn’t see him in the bed, he re-directed himself towards the bathroom once he realized the light was on and the rushing of water could be heard.

He thought that he was just freshening up or just finishing taking a piss but then Ian could smell the tell-tale signs of sickness. What was visible of Mickey’s face in the mirror appeared paler than usual, which is a feat all in itself since Mickey already looks as if he could be Casper the Friendly Ghost’s long lost cousin or some shit with how pale he is.

Mickey’s eyes briefly meet Ian’s in the mirror and Ian sees that the dark haired male’s eyes are bloodshot. “Nothin’, just wasn’t feelin’ well.”

Mickey feels Ian’s arms cage him in against the bathroom sink as he’s swishing some mouthwash around in his mouth, and leans back the slightest bit into his husband’s warm embrace, feeding off of the comfort that the ginger exudes.

“You need anything? You wanna lie back down?”

A shake of Mickey’s head is what Ian’s answered with and he nods before asking, “What made you sick anyway? Something from the restaurant upset your stomach or what?”

“Nah,” Mickey dries his hands and around his mouth, turning the light off and leading the way out of the bathroom. “It smells like somethin’ died in our fuckin’ room. Did you smell it when you came in?”

“Nope, everything seemed fine to me.” Ian shrugs his shoulders and sits down on the edge of their bed as he watches Mickey pull on some pants.

“Well, I sure as fuck didn’t imagine or dream it, shit smelled _ripe_.” Mickey explains confusedly.

It was such a strong scent and a scent like that just doesn’t disappear so easily without a trace in a matter of minutes; that just doesn’t sound logical.

“The window’s open, maybe it came from outside or some shit.”

Mickey just huffs and closes their bedroom window, pulling the curtains closed before turning on the lamps on either side of the bed. “Whatever.”

“Soooo, ‘Lana and Mandy are here.”

“Oh, fuckin’ Christ.” Mickey grumbles. “The fuck are those two Lesbos doin’ here?”

Ian rolls his eyes. “Mick…”

“What?” Mickey questions innocently on his way to their closet. “Are they not two big ol’ carpet munchers?”

“Anyway…”

“Exactly.”

“They’re staying here for a bit. Don’t know how long but yeah.” Ian explains, silently waiting for the explosion, while he stares expectantly at the entrance to their closet where Mickey just disappeared into.

A beat or two of silence later…

“Mickey?” Ian calls out when he doesn’t hear anything. “Mick?”

Ian cautiously stands up from the bed when he hears a muffled “Ian…” come from within the depths of the closet.

Pushing through the hangers of clothes in the fairly spacious room, Ian stops short when he sees Mickey staring at something on the wall.

“What the fuck is _that_?” Ian’s face scrunches up in confusion and horror.

Dripping slowly down the wall is a thick, black substance.

“I have no idea.” Mickey says faintly.

“Where the fuck is it even coming from?” Ian steps closer towards the ooze, taking care not to get too close to it and looks up at the corners of the closet. “It’s like this shit’s just dripping from nowhere.”

“It looks like what was pourin’ out of the fuckin’ Crypt Keeper in that fucked up dream of mine.” Mickey muses.

Ian turns to Mickey. “Is this maybe what made you barf earlier?”

“Do you smell anything right now that makes _you_ want to barf?” Mickey snaps.

Ian shakes his head.

“Alright then, so no it’s not this that made me puke. It was something else and I don’t think I even wanna know what the source of that fuckin’ smell was.”

“What do we do- what the _fuck_?”

“Shit…” Mickey startles.

The moment Ian and Mickey turn back to face the wall, it’s completely clean…no ooze, no spots, no liquids or stains, just the way that it was before, a beige colored plastered wall.

“Well,” Mickey starts to reason. “At least now I know for sure that this shit is real and I’m not the only one witnessin’ it.”

“Who says this is real?” Mickey hears Ian question, but he sounds…strange. Like his voice is distorted.

“What?” He turns around to face the taller male. “The fuck are you on about?”

Ian stares at him for a few long seconds…unblinking…and then he does some freaky ass shit. His head snaps to the side quickly, making his neck bend at an unnatural angle and a loud pop to sound throughout the room.

“Ian?!” Mickey yells shocked, eyes lit up in terror, no human being should be able to do some shit like that to their neck so flawlessly, Mickey doesn’t give a fuck if the person is Jesus, God or the Devil himself, shit’s just fucking _unnatural_. “Dude, the fuck-”

Ian’s eyes cloud with pitch darkness and his face morphs into something out of a fucking horror movie. A long tongue lolls out of his widened mouth, and to Mickey’s horror it’s the _same_ tongue he saw on that _thing_ in that fucking dream of his; all black and slithery.

The rest of Ian’s face rips in two and a gnarled, appalling, black gooey and bloody mess takes its place. A crooked jaw, hanging damn near off of this thing’s face with cracked and dirt-colored teeth as well as an open space where a nose is supposed to reside sits as a gaping hole in the middle of the ugly fucker’s face. Its head is bubbled and red and malformed and the whole creature looked like it belonged to a Hollywood movie set.

Mickey is frozen in fear and is unsure of whether this is just another dream or not. But his adrenaline kicks in and he dives to the floor underneath the hideous creature’s arms and crawls out of the closet before slamming the door shut behind him and racing out of the room.

On his rush down the stairs, Mickey loses his footing, tripping over his feet and tumbling painfully down the rest of the staircase, landing on the floor in a crumpled and groaning heap. Glancing up, he sees the inhuman form doing a sort of jerky, weird movement as it crawls backwards down the stairs towards him making low growling sounds and ignoring the pain shooting up his whole left side, he jumps up and sprints as best as he can in the direction of the kitchen where he can vaguely hear voices, firmly telling himself to not take even a peek back.

Busting in through the entranceway, Mickey gains the attention of the occupants of the room, who all look at him with worried or surprised eyes, except Svetlana who just regards at him with that raised eyebrow of hers, a cigarette loosely held betwixt her index and middle finger.

Ian, hopefully the _real_ Ian this fucking time, places his beer down on the counter he was leaning against and steers himself towards his husband.

“Mick, what’s going on?”

Mickey’s eyes do a slow perusal over everyone in the kitchen taking in their concerned and shocked eyes and at the risk of sounding like he belongs in a fucking psych ward somewhere, he passes what just occurred off as nothing.

“Um…” Ian’s brows raise high on his forehead as if to urge Mickey to explain the meaning behind the dramatically flourish-filled way he busted into the kitchen, “Nothin’, nothin’.”

Surreptitiously doing a small yet quick head crane to scan the surroundings beyond the depths of the kitchen and silently releasing a shuddering sigh of relief when not a thing seems out of place, Mickey swivels back around to face his family and that cold trickle of fear sets in deep inside the pit of his stomach once again.

…Where the _fuck_ are their _faces_?

No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No eyebrows. No features whatsoever, just like a blank slate in place of a normal and human visage. Their bodies are still there, physically, but they’re fucking _faceless_.

Slowly backing out of the kitchen, Mickey lets out an audible gulp when his kids as well as his sister and ex-wife stand up in unison, joining Ian by appearing at his side. And Mickey, tired of this shit already, speaks up and internally stops in amazement at how steady and firm his voice is amidst this creepshow.

“If this is a prank you guys are playin’, I’ll tell you right fuckin’ now that when it’s over, someone’s gettin’ their fuckin’ chest caved in, okay?” Mickey tries patiently holding his hands up, palms facing towards them.

Mickey subconsciously knows that there’s no way that this could be a prank. It’s too elaborate and if his family wanted to scare him they wouldn’t go through such lengths to make him shit his pants, they’d just find a quick and easy way to do it; this…this is something else, but these _things_ don’t need to know about his doubts.

When he doesn’t hear a response and his fam- no, his _not_ family, as he’s positive that his family have actual fucking faces, don’t move a single inch, except they’re still facing him, Mickey decides to just leave altogether. He’ll be damned if he ventures anywhere else in the house, and he’s sure as fuck not going back up those fucking stairs, he can’t even be paid a million dollars to face that ugly fucker again.

Grabbing his keys from their place by the door, he stiffly walks out, his whole body drawn tight with concealed fear and is surprised that he’s not being followed. Stepping in the direction of the truck, Mickey stops in his tracks when he sees that there seems to be a silhouette of someone in the back seat.

It’s pitch black outside and Mickey curses silently to himself for not thinking that through before he stumbled out of the house in his haste to get away from the Mannequin family. To see who the fuck is in the back middle seat of his truck, he presses harshly on the ‘light’ labeled button embedded within the keypad to the vehicle, hooked onto his clustered key ring.

Immediately, the whole truck’s interior is illuminated and Mickey’s met with wide eyes with rivulets of blood leaking out of them, staring unnervingly back at him.

From what Mickey can see, part of what appears to be a man is visible, maybe a few years younger than Mickey and he looks bloated and the light from the moon beams down on the man’s blue pallor-filled skin. Coming from Mickey’s perspective and experience, as growing up in the South Side a person was bound to see a lifeless body more often than not, the dude looks like he’s fucking _dead_.

But obviously he’s _not_ since he’s still peering at Mickey with beady, cold and dead eyes, inundated with the thick and crimson substance. He hopes that that shit doesn’t get on his leather seats or else he’ll fucking kill the fuck out of this asshole, he knows it doesn’t make sense since the dude is evidently dead, but still…those are some expensive ass seats.

Shaking his head at his ability to be comical in a situation like this, Mickey is about to just run down the street, away from this big bag of fucking creepy when the dude in the backseat shifts, catching Mickey’s attention.

The man lifts up a hand to reveal black and talon-sharp nails, just like the man Mickey “saw” at the school, and the guy places the hand on the driver’s head rest calmly and the other hand does the same by resting on the passenger seat’s headrest.

Curious yet undeniably terrified of where this is going, Mickey doesn’t know what the fuck possesses him to stay and witness this shit.

The blue-skinned man leans his head forward more so his head is now in between the space of the seats except closer to the windshield, balancing his weight on the seats on either side of him. Mickey and the man stare at each other for a couple of seconds until the mysterious dude opens his mouth wide revealing jagged and razor-edged, fucked up teeth and that reminiscent black, serpent tongue. The man’s face twists up in an ugly, menacing way and with extreme abhorrence, he bellows succinctly in a piercing and almost demonic-like growl, that Mickey _feels_ all the way to the soles of his feet,

“ _GET OUT_!”

He then crashes through the windshield, lunging towards Mickey in an interminable sea of shattered glass, with that nasty snarl painted on its face, claws outstretched ready to claw at the terror-stricken male’s face.

Jerking awake in bed with a loud raspy-filled gasp, Mickey pants heavily, sitting upright in the bed and eyes darting wildly around their bedroom. Reaching over blindly in the blackness of the room, Mickey flicks on both the bedside lamps, casting the room in a bright glow and Mickey tries to calm his breathing as the darkness is chased away. When he feels a little bit satisfied that nothing’s going to jump out of the closet or materialize in front of his face out of no fucking where, he flops back onto the bed, body tangled in the sheets, rubs trembling hands down his face and lets out an exasperated sigh.

This is the second fucked up nightmare that he’s had within _one_ fucking day and it’s seriously starting to not only grate on his nerves already but it’s starting to make him believe that this house is to blame for this shit. There’s honestly no other logical explanation as Mickey has had weird and fucked up and even a few scary dreams and nightmares before but these…these aren’t just nightmares.

They make Mickey feel some type of way afterwards and it’s not just veritable fear, it’s a mixture of sadness and grief and wonder. Though regular dreams can make one feel those things to the bone, these aren’t the same kind, not in the slightest but Mickey just _can’t_ explain it. Especially not now while he’s still shaking a bit and trying to process the fact that this was only another dream and didn’t actually occur because this is the second time shit felt so fucking real and tangible that Mickey feels like he’s on edge. And it’s only the second day living in the house!

As Mickey lie there, calming his ragged breathing he decides that he’s not going to let this bullshit get to him. Whatever the fuck this house’s deal is or whatever, whoever is fucking with him, he’s going to keep a rational head and is going to avoid and ignore this fuck fest like the fucking Black Plague itself. He and Ian bought this house _together_ and it marked the milestone in their relationship because for fuck’s sake they’re married and have their own official place to call home for the first time in forever really.

There’s no way he’s letting whatever’s happening fuck up the achievement that both he and his husband worked hard for, fuck that. Bring it on, Fucker.

When Mick removes his hands from his face, he flinches back, startled, when his vision is invaded by a ruggedly, handsome face with eyes that appear as if stones were carved out of both emerald and turquoise jewels and then grounded into a fine, shimmering mixture only to be poured into a small cup of deep blue water collected from the ocean itself, leaving behind a swirly jumble of a gorgeous and endless abyss of beauty. _Fucking 20 plus years of being with him and I’ve turned into Emily fucking Dickinson_ , Mickey rolls his eyes inwardly.

“Holy fuck- don’t _do_ that! Almost gave me a goddamn heart attack, Firecrotch!” Mickey breathes, sitting back up in the bed.

He tries to be subtle as he checks his husband out to make sure that it’s really _him_ this time, but then Mickey thinks back on that whole silent monologue he just had with himself not even 10 seconds ago and comes to the conclusion that there’s no way that this would be a dream if he’s able to have deep and reflective thoughts like that.

Still on edge a little, Mickey’s body remains tense as he faces his husband.

“Sorry, I just wanted to come and wake you up. You’ve been up here for a while. Everything okay?” Ian lies down next to Mickey, bracing himself on one elbow, his free arm slinging halfway over the dark-haired male’s waist so he can rest his warm hand on the smaller male’s stomach.

“Yeah, I was just tired,” Mickey watches as Ian’s hand trickles underneath his shirt and rubs his abdomen soothingly and he hesitantly relaxes into the touch. “My headache went away.”

Ian hums absently as he continues to gaze upon Mickey and ponders on whether or not he should tell his lover that his sister and ex-wife are here and apparently regardless of what Mickey says, will take up residence within their new house for god knows how long. Or if he should just let Mickey be surprised when he eventually stomps down the stairs and goes into the kitchen or living room.

 _Fuck it_. Better to get it out of the way.

“’Lana and Mandy are here,” he bites his lip when he feels Mickey tense up again in his arms and Ian chalks it up to his annoyance at their presence and the nonsense they end up getting themselves and the kids involved in. “And they might be staying for a couple of weeks, I’m not sure yet.”

Mickey does his best to not completely freeze in Ian’s arms lest he wanted to rouse any type of suspicion and Mickey didn’t really feel up to answering an assload of questions and possibly being made fun of. That first statement of Ian’s was practically the exact same sentence that Ian uttered in his dream and Mickey, though he doesn’t necessarily believe in God, pleads with whoever and whatever _good_ being hears him that this doesn’t turn out to be another fucking awful nightmare.

Swallowing thickly, Mickey erects his old front. “No they’re fuckin’ not. The kids, on top of this fuckin’ house, and dealing with _you_?” Mickey teases. “I don’t think so. Those bitches are turnin’ right back around and drivin’ their asses straight back to that fancy ass loft they have.”

Ian chuckles and slides his hand further under Mickey’s shirt until he latches onto a nipple, pinching it roughly. “And what’s wrong with me, Mick?”

“Ow- fuck, you’re naggy and clingy as fuc- Ow, Ow, alright, I’m just jokin’, Christ.” Mickey soothes his fingers over his smarting nipple, pouting a little and flicks Ian on the ear in retaliation.

Rolling over on top of Mickey and pinning him to the bed, Ian smugly smiles but it fades into shock when Mickey hooks his leg over Ian’s, easily flipping the ginger onto his back, leaving Mickey on top and straddling his waist, pressing a quick peck to his lips in mocking victory.

“You’re not the only one with a few badass moves.”

Ian nods his head, grinning. “I can see that.” Flipping themselves one last time so that they’re back in their original position with Ian on his side facing his husband and Mickey sprawled out on his back, Ian’s arm wrapped around his waist, Ian continues. “I can also see that you look so fucking tense, I’m afraid if I try to do any more than kiss you, you’ll probably shatter into pieces.”

“Fuck off.” Mickey smiles faintly, yet it doesn’t reach his eyes fully and Ian catches on.

“No, really. If you’re not feeling well, Mick, we can always postpone the party tomorrow for another day. They’ll understand if you’re not really in a partying mood, even though you never really are or were considered much of a party animal.” Ian mumbles the last part but it drifts to Mickey’s ears and he flicks Ian’s ear again.

But Mickey thinks about what Ian said. A couple of weeks ago, it was decided that a party was in order for Ian and Mickey’s success in buying a “bitching house” in Kevin’s words, so they all worked around their individual schedules to agree that the party be on Saturday, September 28, which is tomorrow, sometime in the noon. There isn’t a set time as anyone can arrive whenever as long as it was after 1 P.M. yet before 7 P.M. and Ian and Mickey felt that worked for everyone.

Mickey was reluctant to host the party as though he’s had 20 years to get used to Ian’s family and they can be entertaining sometimes, but were still annoying and loud and a bit intrusive. After all these years, though, he couldn’t resist his husband’s or his daughter’s fucking puppy dog eyes, so he acquiesced, quietly admitting defeat.

However, in light of recent events, Mickey honestly wasn’t feeling up to having a big blow out and it would probably be a much better idea to just cancel the whole thing altogether, but Mickey doesn’t want to upset or disappoint Ian and his daughter, since his sons could care less whether the rest of the family comes over or not.

“Yeah, I think we should reschedule everything,” Mickey feels his stomach tighten when he notices Ian’s bright eyes dim a bit from disappointment, so he quickly jumps to rectify the situation. “But, we can maybe have it on Halloween and make everything all the more cooler and stuff. Make it fun for the kids and shit. And we can even grill outside if you want since it’ll be colder than it is now.”

Mickey smiles when the radiant grin slips instantly on Ian’s face. “I knew I married you for a reason, you’re so fucking smart.” Ian leans forward and plants a lingering kiss on his husband’s lips and pulls back slipping off the bed.

“Oh, so you didn’t marry me for my tight asshole and sexy body?” Mickey questions smartly.

“Well, yeah, of course, but who knew under that grimy, tough guy appearance there’s actually a brain. That just sealed the deal for me, making it an added bonus.”

Mickey throws a pillow at the ginger and hops up from the bed. “’Ay, fuck you.” He says with no real bite.

Ian laughs and catches the piece of furniture, wrapping an arm around Mickey’s waist. “Come on, don’t pretend that you only said “I do” because of the hefty equipment I got going on down there.”

Ian smiles widely when Mickey lets out a genuine amused laugh. It sounds so good to hear his husband laugh like he’s so carefree and doesn’t have the weight of the world resting heavily on his shoulders. Ian still remembers within the first couple of years that he and Mickey were fucking, the then Milkovich never laughed as he claimed that with the world they live in there’s nothing to really laugh about except at your own foolish dreams. Ian thought that was a ridiculous notion, even to this day but it made sense with the father that Mickey had, there was nothing funny about it.

Excluding the cruel and derisive laughter he expelled when he found hurting someone particularly satisfying as well as the short sneer-filled laughter he took up when someone insulted him and he was two seconds away from kneeing them in the balls, kicking them in the ass and/or head-butting their fucking brains out, Mickey’s real laughter is just downright adorable.

Despite him being a grown man, when Mickey laughs, he sounds like a little boy…seriously. It’s a boyish sound mixed in with something of extreme joy and it’s neither masculine or feminine, it’s just…perfect and it brings back old memories for Ian of times spent with Lip and Fiona when they were all younger and they were just always so fearless with one another, not having shit to worry about.

“I love it when you laugh, Mickey Gallagher. And I don’t think you even have the slightest clue how good you sound or how happy it makes me. ” Ian says fondly, wide eyed in fascination.

Mickey stops laughing and bites his lip, almost shyly and doesn’t even try to hide how warm and gooey Ian’s comment made him feel. They’ve been together for too long for him to shrivel up against any compliments and shit. “You’re not so bad yourself, Ian Gallagher.” Treading over to the bathroom to wash up a little, he can almost sense how giddy his own comment made Ian feel as if he was walking on water, regardless of how vague it was, he and Ian both know and understand the meaning behind it.

Rinsing his mouth out and splashing water on his face, Mickey pats his face down with his towel, steps out of the bathroom and sees Ian sitting on the edge of the bed, a contented look drawn upon his face.

Stopping directly in front of him, he rests his hands on either side of Ian’s face and tilts it up so both sets of their eyes clash together, while Ian places his own hands on Mickey’s hips.

“What are you thinkin’ about?” Mickey asks as he runs his hands over the ginger’s buzzed head, feeling the soft and orange fuzz that blankets it.

“Mm, just how-”

 _Beep_. _Beep_. _Beep_. _Beep_. _Beep_.

“Shit, that’s the smoke alarm!” Ian yells in distress, a million thoughts already shooting through his mind, running out of the room and down the stairs with Mickey hot on his heels.

They skid to a stop at the entrance to the living room once they see Svetlana wildly waving a kitchen washcloth over the smoke detector to stop the shrieking siren it continuously emits with Mandy and Regan collapsed on top of each other on the couch cackling like a bunch of hyped up pixies.

Dmitri is playing some type of racing game on the big screen, and from his screaming and endless stream of expletives, is losing, while Yevgeny sits cross-legged on the opposite couch of course glued to his phone.

“ _What_ …the _fuck_ are you numb-nuts doin’?!” Mickey grits out, brows arched up high on his forehead.

Svetlana is finally able to cease the screeching smoke alarm and she gracefully jumps down from the chair she had perched herself on to reach the detector and turns to face Ian and Mickey with a smirk on her face.

She holds up a hand and in between her index and middle finger she holds a sizzled out cigarette and Mickey inhales sharply, ready to dole out a scathing remark but Svetlana beats him to the punch.

“Forgot to open window.”

“Jesus, ‘Lana, you scared the _shit_ out of us,” Ian says incredulously. “If you’re gonna smoke, go outside or stand by the fucking window next time.”

“Or you can just go…” Mickey suggests off-handedly. “Like, go the fuck back to your place. You were just supposed to drop the kids off, so why the _fuck_ are you still here?”

Svetlana drops the cigarette into an ashtray on the coffee table as she saunters up to the two men but not before yanking Regan and Mandy’s hair harshly to stop their sniggering.

“Relax, Orange Boy, Midget Mouse,” Svetlana acknowledges them “respectively” and smiles when she notices Ian clench tightly onto Mickey’s hand to prevent him from possibly ending her life prematurely. “It was mistake, won’t happen again.” She assuages.

Ian nods, disregarding the beloved nickname for him that Svetlana has yet to drop after all these years. In a way, it has even become somewhat of an endearment to Ian and as rarely as Svetlana uses his birth name, it doesn’t bother Ian in the slightest anymore. He even came up with the idea to start calling her Matryoshka, Mattie for short, the name for those awesome ass Russian dolls that Ian can admit he’s modestly disappointed in the fact that she doesn’t own any. But he doesn’t use it too often, sometimes he forgets that he even came up with the nickname, as he actually believes that her own birth name is honestly too pretty and exotic to be replaced even in jest.

Now, for Mickey…Ian doesn’t think that that disregard of the nickname holds true for him.

“As for why I’m still here, I spend time with kids more and test out new house.”

Mickey’s brows furrow in confusion and irritation. “Test- test out? The fuck you gotta test out? It’s a fuckin’ house, _our_ house, not a goddamn new car or some shoes you’re breakin’ in.”

“I tell husband here,” Svetlana nods to Mickey’s right at Ian. “That house feels weird…empty.”

“Yeah, it would to you, since you’ve spent the first half of your life in n’ outta motel rooms, random alleys and you now live in a loft, why would a house feel anything but weird to you?”

“Mickey…” Ian warns.

Svetlana’s irksome smirk doesn’t even waver under the cruel insult; instead she narrows her eyes and steps closer, arms wrapping loosely around her abdomen.

“It’s adorable you think your words hurt me.” Mickey rolls his eyes and clenches his jaw.

“’Lana, you and Mands can stay-”

“The fuck they can!” Mickey yells disbelievingly.

“Daaad,” They hear Regan whine from her seat on the couch. “Please, let them stay! I need some womanly presence in my life, not that I don’t love you guys but I’m tired of asking for you guys’ opinions on things and you looking at me like I have a thousand heads or something.”

“Hey, I help you pick out outfits and stuff!” Ian complains.

“Yeah, and sometimes they’re good buuuut-”

“They’re not skanky enough?” Mickey finishes.

“Fuck off, Mick, her clothes are cute and sexy-” Mandy jumps up from the couch and walks up to join the other three adults.

“She’s fuckin’ 16, she doesn’t need cute and sexy clothes!”

“-but that’s not the matter at hand here, will you please let ‘Lana and I stay here just for maybe a couple of weeks. Then, we’ll leave.” Mandy continues as if Mickey didn’t interject rudely.

Mickey’s eyes shift from his daughter and Mandy’s pleading look to Svetlana’s unimpressed stare and eventually to Ian’s careless look of why-the-hell-not and Mickey lets out a long-suffering sigh. As much as Svetlana and Mandy grate on his _last_ fucking nerve, he can’t deny that he loves his sister and even cares for Svetlana, the mother of his children for fuck’s sake. And though they have their own kickass place, he figures that Regan is right and that she does need some womanly input into her life or whatever, and that it’ll probably be beneficial for the kids to have their mother here, especially Dmitri so Svetlana can set his ass straight immediately when he acts a fool.

And deep down Mickey knows that he also wants them here because he hopes that if there’re more people in the house, then these nightmares will go the fuck away and that dread he continuously feels will dissipate. Svetlana already believes that something is off about the house and that makes Mickey relieved because even though he nor Ian felt anything other than joy when they first stepped foot into the house, Mickey just knows something is wrong too.

If there’re more adults in the house, then the kids’ll be protected one million times better and Mickey also hopes that the kids haven’t experienced anything either, even if it’s only the second day they’ve been living in the house.

The only thing that’s really happened so far is the footsteps and the twisted dreams that Mickey’s been having, and hopefully it’ll stay that way and not involve the kids.

“November 1st, you two are gone and you better not cause any type of shit. This smoke alarm crap is the first strike just so you know.” Mickey explains but then winces when a loud squeal breaks through the sounds of the T.V. blasting Dmitri’s game.

Regan jumps into her father’s arms, squeezing the life out of him and Mickey feels his cold exterior melt with his daughter’s hug. Regan then does the same to Ian before grabbing both her mother and aunt into a big hug.

“Calm down, Ray, you didn’t just win the lotto.” Ian chuckles out.

“Glad we got that settled…’cause so is our stuff already.” Svetlana says, walking back to sit on the couch by her eldest trying to see who he’s texting.

Mickey opens his mouth to reply but is cut off.

 ** _Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**.

“’Ay, D, pause that.” Mickey asks, staring up at the ceiling.

Dmitri groans but at his mother’s look, he quickly does as he’s told.

They sit and stand in silence as a couple of seconds tick on by.

“Dad, I’m about to finally beat this douche-bag!”

“That’s unlikely.” Yevgeny mutters.

“Hey, fuck you, at least I don’t spend my life texting some g-”

“Both of you shut the fuck up!” Mickey yells as he walks closer to the end of the stairs so he can hear.

“What’s up, Mick?” Ian questions as he follows his husband, glancing at everyone else’s befuddled faces at the smaller male’s behavior.

“Listen.”

 ** _Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**.

“You have other guest?” Svetlana asks.

“Not that we know of.” Ian answers.

“So, what the fuck is making that noise?” Mandy steps closer to Mickey and Ian.

“Well, me and Mick believe the house is haunted…hence the reason the price of the house was so low…”

“I’ve never heard those before.” Yevgeny says looking at his siblings whose faces mirror his own dubious expression.

“These footsteps sound different though…” Mickey pensively states.

“How so?” Ian asks.

“They sound heavier and louder…like it’s an entirely different fuckin’ _thing_ making that noise.”

The footsteps immediately stop after that, like it heard and processed Mickey’s sentence. They all look at each other in wonder, while Mickey on the inside is a bit worried at this point since those footsteps sounded angrier than what they sounded last night and this early afternoon; it sounded almost _pissed_.

“That was fucking weird.” Mandy starts.

“Yeah, I thought it may have been some rodents or something…but now unless a fucking elephant is living up there, I don’t think that shit we just heard belongs to an animal.” Ian muses.

Mandy shrugs her shoulders and joins Regan on the couch watching as Dmitri turns the game back on and Yevgeny returns to his texting. Mickey distractedly turns to step into the kitchen, Ian trailing behind him.

Svetlana breaks her gaze away from the ceiling and follows the men’s exit with her eyes, focusing intently on Mickey and how tense he appears to be, back ramrod straight and tips of his fingers trembling a little.

Her eyes then take in the rest of the room and she sees a flash of something shadowy dart by the living room window out of the corner of her eye. Narrowing her eyes, she stands up and walks over to the window, glancing out into the darkness. Nothing looks unusual as she takes in the dark stretch of the main street and the open grass field across the street.

She then looks to the left and right, viewing the other houses a few yards away; everything looks…ordinary and very quiet. It’s not until she goes to turn away that a figure in the distance, facing the house, catches her eye… and it looks big and hulking. It’s shrouded in darkness and Svetlana can’t see a single feature but instead of staring at it in curiosity, she quickly draws the curtains, blocking it out.

 _Something is not right with this place_ , she thinks, venturing back over to the couch and sinking down next to her girlfriend and daughter.


	5. Chapter 5

A couple of weeks slip by and Mickey’s nightmares persist, however he’s gotten to the point where he can determine the difference from reality and the perverted dreams.

The footsteps also continue yet everyone in the house tries to ignore them and go about like shit is normal.

That scratch that was over his lower back tattoo seemed to have healed perfectly fine, yet Ian nor Mickey have no idea how it got there in the first place.

Other than that though, days pass by without any other supernatural incident. The kids’ll get dropped off at school, since Yevgeny’s car is still at the mechanic’s garage, Svetlana and Mandy would go to work after dropping them off, and Mickey and Ian would sleep in for a couple more hours before leaving for their own respective jobs.

When they all got off work and out of school, the kids would sometimes hang with friends and then come home or invite some over or they would just come home and chill out and then the adults would come in and talk or play some card games or just goof off with the kids.

But then of course there’re the times when Mickey and Svetlana would get into their usual bickering and Ian or Mandy would have to call it a night because of their raucous behavior.

Ian and Mickey had also informed everyone that the house-warming party would be moved to Halloween just to give them all a chance to settle completely which they all understood and re-assured that they wouldn’t miss it.

Surprisingly, though, shit was working out and nothing else crazy was happening which Mickey is very much thankful for.

-

Walking through the halls of the hospital, in his light blue scrubs, Mickey changes direction when he hears a commotion coming from the large waiting room at the front of the hospital.

As he gets closer, he lets out a low annoyed groan when he recognizes the voice. _It’s every fuckin’ week with this guy_.

“I’ve been waiting here for _two_ _fucking hours_ -”

“Yes, and I’ve told you already, sir, that you’ve got to be patient-”

“And I’ve told _you_ already that I’m in a fucking hurry, so get the fuck outta my way, stupid bitch!” A large, rotund man leaning heavily on a cane screams into an exasperated young nurse’s face and he pushes past her to approach the front desk tucked safely behind a glass rectangle.

Mickey steps into the rectangular box and politely persuades the woman at the front desk to move aside a little.

“’Ay, what I tell you about harassin’ my nurses, Max?” Mickey yells out gaining the big man’s attention.

Said man, Max, stops at the front desk directly in front of Mickey and glares at him angrily. “Tell your fucking nurses to learn how to do their job…y’know, to _help_ people…not make them wait for hours on fucking end.”

“Some other people have more problems, _real_ problems, than a fuckin’ sprained wrist or some made-up shit just ‘cause you wanna suck down more drugs, you fuckin’ addict.” Mickey explains flippantly as he beckons a frazzled Lisa over to behind the desk, the brunt of this fat ass, drug addict’s anger from not even a minute ago, and tells her to help Marcus file and organize.

“Hey, fuck you! You can’t talk to a patient like that!” More peoples’ heads turn to look at the irate man as they all sit in the lobby waiting for their turn to be seen.

“See, that’s we’re you’re wrong,” Mickey turns from where Lisa and Marcus are organizing and focuses on the asshole. “You’re not a patient, you’re some fuck-head who comes up with bullshit excuses to come here and waste everyone’s fuckin’ time just ‘cause you wanna get your fix.”

Matt splutters, embarrassed yet furious at this nurse talking down on him in front of a roomful of people. “This is unacceptable! Where the fuck is your boss, I’d like a word with them about this shitty treatment!”

Mickey scoffs. This isn’t the first time someone has wanted to see his boss and it surely will not be the last. Mickey knew that after the first time of someone calling Dr. Joel Capaldi down for Mickey’s attitude, Mickey would’ve had his ass kicked to the curb but because he’s unapologetically damn good at what he does, the dude keeps him and ignores the complaints. Capaldi’s crush on him probably helps as well.

So, he’ll gladly call his boss down if it gets this junkie out and off the hospital’s premises, however his lunch break has just started, conveniently, and his date just walks in, making Mickey sigh, irritated that he’ll lose time because he has to deal with this shit.

“Dude, just go and find some dealer, it’s my break and I ain’t got time for this shit.” Mickey sees Ian sit down in a chair by the front revolving doors and Mickey signals to him that he has to go and get his jacket before they go and Ian nods with an understanding smile.

It’s towards the beginning of October and it’s become a bit cooler outside than before and Mickey knows that Ian doesn’t feel like hearing his mouth about the cold as it would just lead to an argument and then to a shitty lunch date as they avoid talking to each other because they can’t agree to disagree. It just wouldn’t be worth it.

Mickey leans down and whispers in Lisa’s ear. “If he’s still here within the next minute, just call security.” Lisa nods eagerly and goes back to her work.

Max, tired of being ignored slams his fist against the glass box, causing everyone to wince when they hear a loud crack echo throughout the lobby. He pulls his hand back with a pained scream and Mickey, his face now twisted in a snarky smirk, laughs before going through the automated doors leading further into the hospital to go get his jacket from the locker room. That’s the exact reason they had the plexi-glass installed in the first place.

Acknowledging the “Hey, Mickey”’s and the “’Sup”’s from his co-workers through the halls of the hospital, Mickey finally ventures through the doors leading to the locker room and stops after they swing shut behind him.

The locker room is shadowed and fucking freezing and just _silent_ and Mickey swallows harshly before continuing forth, trying not to think about anything other than the task of getting his jacket. Striding down the third row where his own locker is located, Mickey quickly takes his key out of his pocket, unlocks the squared, light blue, metallic box and gathers his things.

Pulling his grey beanie over his head, fuck Ian for influencing him to buy an assload of these things, and shrugging on his tan jacket, Mickey closes it and walks towards the door before a loud clanging sound makes him halt in his tracks.

The sound gets louder and Mickey has no idea where it’s coming from but he knows he doesn’t plan to stay and find out, so he books it out of the room and once he’s beyond the locker room doors, he slows down and lets out the breath he’d been holding.

Mickey doesn’t bother to look back and when he regains his breath, he turns the corner and crashes right into someone else.

“Fuck!” Mickey bounds back a couple of centimeters but familiar arms grab him before he slips and falls and steadies him.

“Shit, Mick, you good?” Ian looks at Mickey and the smaller male can see the worry reflecting in the mixed orbs.

“Yea…yeah,” Mickey punches Ian in the stomach, and the ginger keels over in pain. “What the fuck are you doin’ back here? Thought you were still sittin’ in the lobby?” Mickey didn’t want to let Ian in on the fact that he scared the ever loving _shit_ out of him.

Ian takes a second to recollect and push away the slight pain he felt at his husband’s punch. “…I was tired of sitting there and watching that dude make a fool outta himself,” Ian straightens his form back upwards and pins Mickey with a concerned look, face still distorted in the slightest bit of discomfort. “And you were taking a while, I thought you got called back onto the floor or something happened.”

Mickey sighs. “I dropped my stuff and had to pick it up. Everythin’s fine, I’m fine, okay?”

Ian hesitates, and nods and looks up behind Mickey to the windowed doors of the locker room before focusing his attention back on the dark haired male.

“So, where you wanna go eat?”

-

“You mind if we come over today, Ray?” One of Regan’s friends asks as they make their way to the student parking lot.

Regan shrugs her shoulders as she makes her way to her oldest brother and what appears to be his friend’s car, noticing the burly, black dude leaning against the side of the vehicle and conversing with Yevgeny closely.

“Sure,” Regan pulls her cell out of her pocket when she feels it vibrate and smiles down at the text. “It’s a half day remember? My parents won’t be home until hours later so we could chill for a bit.”

“You sure?” Reid, one of Regan’s best friends, the other two being Teagan and Caden, asks. “Don’t you gotta ask first?”

All four of them shudder in memory of Mr. Mickey Gallagher storming into the old apartment and going off on why Regan’s friends were there without her asking permission and why so many people were over in such a small space in the first place. Reid, Teagan and Caden had to rush out of there, afraid that he was going to tear them a new one for even breathing in his home. That was the _first_ and _last_ time Regan’s friends came over to hang out over there.

“Yeah…and he acted like that ‘cause Dad told me that Daddy had lost a patient at the hospital and not only that but it was too hot and he just wasn’t having the best of days. So, we should be fine today. Like I said, as long as you guys are gone before either of my Dads or my mom get home, it’s all good. My Aunt doesn’t really care about stupid shit like asking permission and stuff.”

The tanned girl, Teagan, opens her mouth to ask a question but squeals loudly when she feels herself being picked up and tossed over a broad shoulder, a calloused hand landing heavily on her bare thigh with a loud slap.

“Derek, what the fuck?!” Teagan screams out, punching at the muscled back.

The other three stop and turn around to see what the commotion is about and they roll their eyes.

“You can’t bring Derek, T.” Regan stops in front of the car, nodding a greeting to the dude still talking to ‘Geny and getting an acknowledgement back, she turns back to her friends.

She couldn’t stand Derek and she knew that neither could Caden and Reid. He’s an asshole senior to the fucking extreme, that typical asshole who thinks he’s funny and shit when he’s evidently not. He once asked Regan out and when she said no, he got angry and got in her face but she kneed him in the dick and that was an end to that. They’ve hated each other ever since.

Regan honestly has no clue what Teagan sees in him, but it really ain’t her business as her father always likes to say to her and her brothers when they ask him something that he feels is personal.

“Why the fuck not can’t she bring me?” Derek glares at Regan and Regan returns the unhidden sentiment with full force with a glare of her own.

“You don’t even know where the fuck we’re going, dumbass.” Reid speaks up, face scrunched up in annoyance.

Regan snickers at Reid’s face. While Teagan is outgoing and loud, colored tan with her wavy, dyed red hair hanging to her shoulders, makeup excessively caked on her face, and her clothes a touch on the whorish side, despite the now chilly weather, Reid is a mocha colored girl with a lot more sense than Teagan. Wearing a more sensible outfit for the weather, with her pixie styled hair, Reid is witty yet is just as loud and outgoing as Teagan but both the girls would get Regan in more trouble than they’re worth sometimes, which Regan knew her Fathers hated immensely.

She had met both girls the start of middle school and she actually didn’t like either of them in the beginning but ironically they were all paired together for some bullshit project teachers like to come up with these days and worked together.

Though Regan still thinks that Teagan is slutty to this day and that Reid can be a bit annoying with her brainiac ways, Regan still considers them as her best friends.

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Reid’s eyebrows shot up and she’s ready to take a step towards the dude and drop his rude ass until the mysterious black guy, whom is a tint darker than Reid, breaks off from his low conversation with Yevgeny and interjects.

“Dude, relax. Don’t talk to her like that.” It’s a deep and silky tone and all three girls admittedly feel their faces twist up in shocked appreciation for that voice.

Yevgeny just briefly rests his hand on the guy’s back before walking around and getting into the driver’s side of the car to wait for Dmitri to get there with his slow ass.

The five of them take in the guy before them. Tall and brawny, body encased in simple white, long-sleeved, thermal that clung a bit to his chest, showcasing his abdominal muscles, and baggy jeans that sit around his waist with a belt, instead of that sagging shit that guys still walk around doing, topping it off with a pair of tan Timberland boots. Hair closely shaved to his head attractively, eyes a dark hazel color, adorably chunky nose with a dusting of stubble over the lower half of his face.

He looks older, a bit too old to be in high school and though the others are curious, they let it go.

“Whatever, man.” Derek mutters, not wanting to even try mouthing off to this dude and sees him get into the passenger seat, before he turns to Regan. “Why can’t I come to wherever you guys’re going?”

“’Cause you and T don’t know how to keep your hands off each other for more than 30 seconds.” Regan answers.

“Like you haven’t been all over Drew before, Ray. Remember? You told me and Reid that you two-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Regan looks over to see if Yevgeny heard any of that and when she sees that he’s too absorbed in his conversation with his friend, she whirls on Teagan furiously. “You talk too fucking loud sometimes, Teagan.”

Teagan shrugs her shoulders unapologetically before she begins to beg. “Can he come, please, Ray? We promise we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

“Who’s keeping their hands to themselves?” Drew pops up out of nowhere, joining the group.

“Hey.” Regan wraps her arms around the footballer and he leans down to give her a sloppy, tongue-heavy kiss.

“Fucking gross.” Caden complains, mock retching as he glances away from the couple.

Regan breaks away first and laughs at Caden’s reaction. She sometimes feels bad for the boy. He’s gay but unlike her own fathers, Caden is more…flamboyant about his sexuality. Tight, designer clothes, which Regan wonders how he survives dressing like that on this part of town, since it’s not necessarily openly acceptable to gay people, especially gay guys that are careless of giving a fuck about what he wears like Caden is. But then a rich lawyer for a father and a congresswoman for a mother, Regan guesses that power like that will get anyone to stay away in fear of the law.

Perfectly coifed blonde hair that is streaked with dark brown, heavily pierced ears not un-similar to what Regan’s looks like, with bright green eyes, fair skin and a swimmer’s build for a body, even though he doesn’t remotely do anything relating to sports. A cute button nose with the bridge smattered in a light dusting of freckles; he’s really cute if one can work with his sometimes nerdy and sarcastic personality.

But he had broken up with his boyfriend Ryan close to a year ago and he’s still devastated by it, despite his many denials, Regan, Teagan and Reid can easily see that it’s still affecting him negatively. Since then, he still hasn’t found someone for himself, causing him to mope around his house more often than not.

“Don’t worry, Caden, we’ll find someone for you soon enough so you can get your Mack on again.” Regan says teasingly.

They all laugh. “I guess Derek can come, T, just behave yourselves.” Regan continues sternly. “If you guys are all coming over, you’ll have to follow behind Yev’s friend’s car.”

Teagan claps happily and drags Derek away to his car, Drew planting another kiss on Regan’s mouth, and he walks to his own car, offering Reid and Caden a ride.

Regan looks after them with a smile on her face but it fades when she sees a huge, dark figure lurking behind the side of the school building across the parking lot. She wouldn’t have cared as much if the figure isn’t facing her directly, its head turned towards her in obvious observation.

She can’t see any facial features because the part of the building the figure’s hiding behind is heavily shadowed.

A shiver shakes throughout her body and her face is now downturned in a frown and she quickly gets into the backseat of the crappy car to get away from the intense feeling of being stared at. But she can still feel it, even within the safe confines of the car. _Did anybody else notice that_? She thinks, as she and her brother still wait for Dmitri, Yev’s friend still sitting in the passenger seat, talking with the oldest Milkovich turned Gallagher.

-

“Who was that guy?”

Mickey’s face, his cheeks stuffed full of a double bacon cheeseburger, having just taken a bite out of the big burger in his hands, scrunches up in confusion. “What guy? That addict that was in the lobby?”

Ian stuffs a couple of fries in his mouth, and takes a sip of his large Sprite, looking out the windshield at the bushes in front of them. They’re parked in the back lot of a Wendy’s, Mickey not having the patience or the desire to go eat at an actual restaurant today, and have their own ordered food from Wendy’s sitting in their laps, the separate bags being used as plates, so they don’t dirty the car or get shit on any of their clothes.

“Nah, the dude in the locker room.” Ian looks back at Mickey who has that befuddled expression pasted back onto his face.

“What? What dude in the locker room? When did you see him?”

Taking a bite of his Baconator, Ian swallows and takes another sip before answering. “Saw ‘im right before I asked where you wanted to go eat. He was looking out through the glass windows on the doors...he looked angry as fuck.”

Mickey stops chewing. “Ian…there was no one in that room with me when I was in there.”

“What?” Ian questions baffled. He _saw_ the dude staring at them from the little window on the door, he didn’t imagine that shit. “I saw him, Mick. How the fuck can you tell me that no one was in there with you?”

“Because there was no one in there with me, Ian! I would’ve heard them. That room echoes and the slightest fuckin’ _breath_ for fuck’s sake can be heard if it’s quiet enough and when I went in there, there wasn’t a single fuckin’ noise.” Mickey explains starting to get irritated. How the fuck is he gonna sit there and try to argue with Mickey when Mickey was the one in the fucking room?

“You didn’t hear a single noise when you were in the room?” Ian asks disbelievingly, still munching on his food.

Mickey raises his eyebrows in annoyance, his food forgotten for a second. “Ian…” Mickey says warningly, trying to keep his patience in check. “I didn’t hear anythin’ when I walked in. When I was gatherin’ my stuff, I heard somethin’, like a pipe was bein’ knocked constantly against a locker but-”

“So somebody was in there!” Ian exclaims.

“No! No one was in there-”

“You just said you heard-”

“After I was in there for a minute myself, fuck-tard,” Mickey says heatedly. “I would’ve heard someone come in, those fuckin’ doors are as old as Christ, they squeak like a motherfucker.”

“Okay, I get that, but, Mick, someone was probably in there before you got there.”

“Ian, fuckin’ Christ, nobody was fuckin’ in there period! When you walk into a room, you automatically know whether you’re alone or not. Didn’t they teach you that basic shit when you were in that ROTC bullshit?” Mickey is so ready to just smash the rest of his burger into his husband’s face, push his ass out the door and run him over with the truck.

“Alright, Mickey. So, who the fuck was that in the window then?”

Mickey throws his hands up in the air. Why the fuck are they still on this? They’re supposed to be having a nice little lunch, a _peaceful_ lunch, not this pointless argument. “I don’t fuckin’ know, you saw him, not me.” Mickey looks up and sees a speculative far away look in Ian’s eyes and decides to humor him some more since he seems so determined in this supposed dude being in that room. “What’d he look like?”

Ian takes a moment to think. “He looked tall. And his eyes were dark gree- no hazel, yeah, they were hazel. Uh, I think his hair was short and dark brown and it was kinda curly, wavy. He was actually good-looking. Should I be jealous, Mick?” When Ian doesn’t hear a reply, he turns to the dark haired male and his face twists in worry. “Mickey? You okay? What’s wrong?”

His face looks like he’s five seconds from throwing up and Ian places his food down on the middle console and puts his hand on Mickey’s back. “What’s wrong?” He repeats.

“Ian…”

“Yeah?”

“That’s the same guy that’s been fuckin’ with me in my dreams,” Mickey had told Ian about the fucked up dreams he continually had and is still having after that first one at the school. Mickey had jerked up in bed one night the next week, in the process waking Ian who had groggily asked what was going on. “He’s not fuckin’ human.”

Ian’s speechless and beyond lost at this point. So, Mickey’s told him about these super creepy, supernatural nightmares that have been plaguing him constantly but Ian had thought that maybe Mick’s just feeling new household jitters; trying to get used to a new and unfamiliar place and whatnot. But what the fuck does Mick mean that “he’s not human”?

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Ian, that person you saw is not fuckin’ human. It has eagle claws for fuckin’ hands and a snake tongue for a fuckin’ mouth and-and-and-” Mickey struggles to continue to explain, feeling nervous that this thing seems to actually exist and according to Ian, is very angry. With what, Mickey doesn’t know and doesn’t care to.

“Hey, hey, just, relax,” Ian placates. “Are you sure that it’s the same guy?”

“Yes, fuckin’ yes, Ian, it’s the same guy. It’s not a fuckin’ coincidence! I don’t even think there’s an employee there that looks like what you just described. _Fuck_! What the fuck does this thing want?!” Mickey thumbs his lip anxiously.

“Mick, not that I don’t believe you, but maybe you need to take the rest of your shift off and take a break. And then when I get home later we can get you in the bath, get you to relax and-”

“It’s fine, I’m fine-”

“You keep saying that, Mickey, but you’re really starting to worry me with this shit!” Ian yells and immediately regrets it when he sees Mickey’s head is turned downwards towards his lap, fingers slowly shifting around his fries.

Mickey looks tired and worn down. Normally, Mickey would’ve just flipped out on Ian and they would continue to go back and forth until one of them either tackles each other to initiate some angry sex or admits defeat, and nine times out of ten it was the former.

But lately, Ian knows Mickey hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep. Mick won’t admit it, but Ian’s positive that his husband is a bit fearful of falling asleep and having those realistic nightmares. Ian knows he would feel the same way if every time he fell asleep he felt like he was in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Who the fuck wouldn’t? They hadn’t fucked in weeks whether it’s because Mickey’s exhausted or because of his work, Ian’s not sure. Maybe a patient is diagnosed with a horrible and incurable disease or a patient dies or patient after patient after patient is rushed in, and Mickey’s has little time for breaks.

It’s not like he’s stopped eating and has lost weight or some extreme shit like that but Ian’s really worried over this constant exhaustion and how it seemingly appeared out of nowhere. It’s a fucked up thing to think, but it’s Ian’s job to be all low and exhausted with his Bipolar disease going on but he’s been alright these last few weeks. Ever since they first got to their new house he’s been doing well. Taking his meds as prescribed every morning and continuing his rigorous workout regimen.

He wonders if this is how Mickey felt when Ian hit his lows the first few times; completely helpless and worried beyond what words can really express.

It’s not that Ian doesn’t believe Mickey, because Mickey is far from the type to make shit like this up or believe in this shit so strongly if it isn’t true, but Ian himself is just fearful of what might happen if they go digging into the history of this house and unleash something completely fucked up that could kill them or something. Who the hell knows? That’s an irrationally, radical way of thinking of it but Ian doesn’t want to stir anything up when everything seems to be fine right now, excluding Mickey’s exhaustion and nightmares.

“Listen, Mickey, I believe you, alright? I do, but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. I don’t want us to go bringing up something that was more than we bargained for and have everyone affected by it. And I’m sorry I yelled and kept on pressing about the dude or non-human or whatever the fuck he or it is, I was just trying to understand.”

“Whatever, Ian.” Mickey continues eating his burger, but more slowly than before, since his appetite has receded the moment Ian mentioned the guy.

Ian lets out a deep sigh. “I’d really like it if you’d go home and rest but I don’t want you there by yourself if you’re that concerned for your safety.”

“I’m not concerned for my fuckin’ safety, I just…” Mickey has no other tough excuse besides the real reason Ian just provided, so he just continues eating and shakes his head angrily, teeth clenched.

“When you get home tonight, I’ll have Svetlana or Mandy or one of the kids, it doesn’t really matter, order some Chinese food, and we’ll eat it in our room. And then we can take a bath, I’ll give you a massage after we get out and then we’ll lie in bed together, just you and me. How does that sound, Mick?” Ian gathers his garbage, having finished his food during his reflection on Mickey’s well-being these last few weeks. “It should relax you enough and take your mind off of everything, okay?”

Mickey swallows the last of his own food, drinking it down with his soda and handing his garbage off to Ian who opens the door and disposes of the trash into the garbage bin they conveniently parked right next to and gets back in, looking at Mickey expectantly. Nodding, Mickey answers, a tired smile forming on his lips. “Yeah, that sounds great, Ian, thank you.”

Ian gives his own smile and leans over giving his husband a kiss.

-

“Damn…this is a nice ass place, Ray.” Drew whistles out as him, the rest of Regan’s friends, Dmitri, some ditzy girl he brought and Yevgeny and his friend enter the house.

“Your parents must’ve cleared out their accounts paying for this house.” Reid adds.

“It’s cheaper than you’d expect,” Yevgeny inputs. “Don’t get into too much trouble, I’ll be in my room, see ya.” Yevgeny then turns to his friend and nods his head in the direction of the stairs to which he understands and follows after ‘Geny when he leads the way.

The group of younger kids stares after the two oldest people in the house at the time as they make their way up the stairs before completely disappearing.

“Alright,” Teagan claps her hands together, gaining the attention of the five other teens standing before her marveling at the mint conditioned house, Dmitri and Regan having gone to the kitchen to get some snacks. “Who wants some party favors?” She holds up a snack-sized baggie packed with weed in one hand while the other holds some rolling paper and blunts.

The teens all glance at each other with a hint of mischievousness in their eyes until Regan and Dmitri come back out of the kitchen, arms filled with sodas and chips and cookies, and Regan gives them their answer. “Hells yeah, bitches!” The teens all laugh and let out a loud cheer as Regan leads them to the living room.

-

_4 Hours Later- 4:23 P.M._

-

The kids lie in a smoke-filled haze in the living room. Regan’s collapsed on top of Drew on the loveseat, his hand trying to get down the front of her tight jeans. Reid and Caden sprawled out side by side on the carpeted floor. Teagan grinding heavily in Derek’s lap on the other sofa, the both of them attacking each other’s mouths with enthusiasm. Dmitri and his dumb girlfriend, or whatever the fuck she was, are still passing a blunt back and forth, sucking in the addictive drug like they’re starving for it.

It’s quiet save for their slow breathing until the thudding of heavy footsteps sound from above.

 ** _Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**.

Reid sits up lackadaisically and looks up at Regan questioningly. “Did your parents come back and we didn’t notice?”

That sentence gets the attention of everyone else and though they’re still really out of it with how high they are, they all turn to look at Regan and Dmitri. Regan answers since Dmitri is occupied. “No way. You would’ve heard if they came in here, they would’ve had a fucking _conniption_ if they had walked in on this.” She giggles.

“What’s that noise then?” The ditzy girl of Dmitri’s asks.

“It’s probably Regan and Dmitri’s older brother and his friend, did you guys forget they’re up there?” Caden reasons.

“Nah, but it sounds like it’s coming from somewhere higher than the second floor and Yev said he’d be in his room.” Derek says.

“Yeah…” He pauses to take another hit from the blunt. “Plus no one’s been up in the attic yet, so…” Dmitri huffs out a cloud of smoke and passes off the last of it to his friend.

 ** _Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**.

“My dad said a few weeks ago that the house may be haunted.” Regan absently says.

“No fucking way, we gotta go see what’s up there then!” Drew suddenly exclaims after hearing Regan.

“What? Why?” She questions, brows raised.

“’Cause, maybe something’s up there, like some witchcraft shit or something.”

The others started to sober up with the direction the conversation’s taking. “The fuck? Have you seen horror movies? Don’t ever go check something out, you’ll get your ass killed…murdered in cold blood.” Dmitri explains grimly.

“Those are movies, man. This is real life, what if we really find a ghost or a witch up there? We record that shit, upload it to the ‘net and BOOM,” Drew makes an exaggerated gesture with his arms. “Making millions.”

They all stare at him for a couple of seconds before they let out loud guffaws. “You sound like a fucking retard, that weed’s obviously gotten to your head.” Reid says still laughing.

“Whatever, fuck you guys. I’m going up there.” He stands up and turns to Regan. “Where d’you guys keep the flashlights?”

“You’re seriously going up there?” Regan gives him a look of disbelief.

“Of course! And we drove all the way over here, might as well make it worth our while, right?”

Regan thinks it over and though she knows it’s a dumb idea, she doesn’t want this dumb fuck to end up getting hurt up there, so she agrees and goes to get a couple of flashlights.

“No fucking way. You’re going along with this, Ray?” Reid asks, jumping up from the floor with help from Caden.

“Yeah, why not? Plus, I can’t risk him possibly getting his head split open ‘cause he’s a clumsy ass, then my parents’ll really kill me.”

After grabbing some flashlights, the two make their way towards the stairs. “So, anyone else coming on this unexpected journey or you guys just gonna sit down here.” Regan looks at all of them looking at each other.

“Alright, fuck it, let’s go.” Dmitri hops up and drags his girlfriend? after him.

Derek seeing that, decides to get up and join in as well, Teagan attached to his side, blissfully unaware at the moment. Whenever they smoke, she always gets the highest out of all of them which no one can really understand why.

Reid and Caden look at each other, a similar look of disagreement shared between them. “Nah, we’re definitely fine right here.” Reid says carelessly, flopping onto the couch and turning the T.V. on, Caden following her example.

The six teenagers crowding by the stairs shrugs their shoulders and they start to one by one make their way up the stairs. Regan the last one to go up turns around one last time. “Suit yourselves.”

Hearing the six pairs of feet trekking up the stairs, Caden turns to Reid. “We hear shit go down, we’re outta here.”

Reid barks out a laugh. “How the fuck are we outta here? Ray’s boy-toy was the one to give us a ride.”

Caden pouts and sits back. “Shit, you have a point.”

Reaching over and patting her friend on the lap, Reid chuckles as she keeps the channel on Cartoon Network, in the mood for some of the more trippy cartoons perfect for her medium high state. “We’ll just stay down here sweetie and understand that we were smart enough to board the nope train to fuckthatville.”

They both laugh loudly at that and settle in to watch T.V.

-

Now on the second floor of the house, midway down the hallway, the teens stare up at the set of stairs leading all the way up to an ominously large, dark mahogany door.

“Who wants to go up first?” Everyone turns their attention to Dmitri after hearing his question. “I guess, that’ll be me then.”


	6. Chapter 6

The stairs creak and groan loudly as Dmitri begins his slow ascent up the steps, everyone following after him.

When he gets to the door, he tries the handle but the door doesn’t budge in the slightest. Brows crinkled in confusion, Dmitri throws his side against the door and pushes down on the long, brass handle once again, but it still doesn’t move.

“Here, let me try.” Drew offers, pushing through the others to get up by the door.

“Try it together.” Teagan suggests.

“Alright on three,” Dmitri starts. “One…Two…Three!”

Both boys throw their added weight against the door and with twin groans of pain, they bound back a couple of centimeters when the door refuses to cave in.

Annoyed, Drew punches the door. “Aw, dammit! I actually wanted to see some creepy shit!”

“I don’t understand. There’s no keyhole or any lock on the door, why the hell won’t it open?” Regan looks up at the door with confusion reflecting in her blue orbs.

“It probably hasn’t been open in years…” Dmitri’s girl says. “What the fuck’s that all over the floor?”

They all look down at her question and notice a black and dusty substance spread out all over the first step right near the door’s threshold.

“Hey, you guys, your Dad and Aunt are here!” Reid motions to Dmitri and Regan, from the bottom of the stairwell, interrupts the chance for anyone to say anything. Then she looks at them, confusion marring her own features. “Why you guys just standing around? Thought you were going up to the attic?”

“Shit!” Regan yells before rushing down the stairs, Dmitri sharing the same sentiment and everyone else stumbling down the steps after them. The door, the mysterious substance and Reid’s question completely forgotten in favor of panicking.

“We’ll explain later.” Teagan whispers to Reid, dragging her with them.

Regan’s met with her ginger dad’s stern face and her aunt’s smiling face when she, her brother and friends get down the stairs and stop in the living room.

“God _damn_ , this is your _aunt_? How fucking old is she?”

Regan whirls on Drew with a furious look, while Mandy just laughs and Ian raises a brow at the apparent lust shining in the boy’s eyes. “Oh, sweetie,” Mandy mocks condescendingly. “I’m too old for you and you’re not my type.”

“Aunt Mandy!” Regan exclaims, embarrassed, at the same time Ian says, “Cut it out, Mandy.”

“So, Regan, Dmitri,” said kids look up at Ian sheepishly already knowing what he’s about to say. “Did you guys ask if you could have friends over? ‘Cause I don’t recall getting a phone call or anything. And what the fuck is _he_ doing in this house?” Ian directs the last sentence towards Drew.

“Well, we asked Dad a few hours ago and he said that we could.” Dmitri excuses and ignores his father’s last question.

Ian smiles knowingly. “Oh, you did?”

“Yeah, of course! You know we’d never have people over without asking.” Regan passes it off as if like they’d do something so crazy and she shares a look with Dmitri, like “nice save” to which he nods.

Ian himself nods, a dubious look painted all over his face, his lips turned down in an over exaggerated doubtful frown. Mandy chuckles and heads into the kitchen, knowing that her nephew and niece are just about to get embarrassed even more in front of their friends.

Back in the living room, all the kids are still standing around looking at each other uncertainly, the T.V. in the background playing Adventure Time. Ian looks down at the coffee table and sees smoked down joints and blunts littered all over it.

“He say you could get high too?” Ian asks already knowing the answer.

“No…but…” Regan didn’t know what to say.

The front door opens and Regan and Dmitri hold their breaths in hope that it isn’t their other Dad, but they calm down when they see that it’s just their mother.

“Holy shit!” Derek exclaims gaining the attention of everyone. “What? She’s _bangin_ ’!”

Teagan punches him in the arm while Drew gives the other senior boy a look of agreement.

“What is going on?” Svetlana asks, walking into the living room and setting down her purse and work bag onto the couch.

“Regan and Dmitri here asked Mick if they could have friends over and apparently he said yes.” Mandy answers coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of butter crunch ice cream. “Hey, babe.” She plants a kiss on Svetlana’s lips and then flops onto the couch.

Everyone’s jaws besides Regan, Dmitri and Ian’s, drop.

“Wait, that’s your aunt,” Reid points to Mandy who waves at her. “And this is your mother,” She gestures to Svetlana who looks at her blankly. “And they’re…together?”

“It’s-” Regan starts.

“None of business,” Svetlana crosses her arms and pins all the kids in front of her with a hard glare. “What are all you doing here?”

“Um, we’re friends and Regan invited us over after she got permission from her Dad.” Caden explains confidently, peeking glances up at Regan’s ginger’ed dad. He’s so fucking hot.

“No she didn’t.” Svetlana simply says.

“What? Yea, she did, Mom!” Dmitri yells defensively.

“D, don’t talk to-”

Svetlana holds up her hand to cut Ian off and she walks over, slapping Dmitri over the back of the head causing Regan’s friends to snicker behind their hands and everyone else to wince. “I was not talking to you. And don’t ever raise voice to me, Dmitriyev.”

“Dmitri _yev_?” The nameless girl laughs out.

Svetlana turns to her. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m Claire-”

“I didn’t ask for name,” Svetlana sneers. “I ask who you are.”

“I-I don’t under-”

“’Lana, just hold on a sec.” Ian cuts in. The girl looks like she’s about to piss her pants with or some shit. “If you would all leave please, that’d be great.” Ian turns to Regan and Dmitri’s friends. This shit has been drawn out for way too long and he wanted them gone and everything sorted out before Mickey gets home. He wanted his husband to have a relaxing night and not have to deal with a bunch of rambunctious and dumbass teens.

“But-”

One look from Ian though and no one else tries to put up an argument. The kids gather their things, leaving the flashlights on the couch, Teagan collecting the used joints for later use and they awkwardly bid Regan and Dmitri goodbye, Drew going so far as to offering Regan a kiss but Svetlana and Ian stepping closer to them with threatening looks on their faces, he scurries out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

It’s quiet for a couple of seconds before Ian notices something or more like someone missing. “Where’s ‘Geny?”

“He’s upstairs with his friend.”

“Jesus, is it so fucking hard to ask permission first before you guys invite company over?” Ian rhetorically asks, climbing the stairs.

“But we did ask for permission!” Regan nearly whines.

“Ray,” She and her brother turn toward their aunt and mother sitting on the couch. “Little piece of advice, Ian isn’t stupid and hell surely would freeze over before Mickey would agree to let you have more than maybe a couple of friends over, _maybe_.” Mandy says laughingly.

-

Hearing the soft murmur of what sounds like R&B music come from Yevgeny’s room, Ian knocks, waiting a couple of seconds and when he gets no answer, he goes to turn the knob but finds that it’s locked.

Ian frowns but then goes to his and Mick’s bedroom, unlocking the door and striding over to their dresser. He pulls the middle drawer out and shuffles through their clothes before happening upon a baggie of keys. He and Mick have a set of keys to every room in the house with a locked door and that of course includes the kids’ rooms, in case of emergencies.

Right now is not really an emergency but Ian and Mickey gave the few rules and Yev is not only disobeying the company without asking rule but he’s also disobeying the locked door rule. The kids are allowed to lock their doors but only when they’re not there and are out with friends or whatever the fuck and only in instances of somebody breaking into the house or some shit but no one would dare do something like that with the Milkoviches/Gallaghers.

Grabbing the key for Yev’s room, Ian goes back and inserts the key, and pushes the door open, immediately freezing at what he sees.

Yevgeny is on his back, his face the epitome of ecstasy, his legs wrapped tightly around a solid-looking black dude’s waist, as said dude pounds viciously into him.

“Holy _shit_.”

Yevgeny’s eyes open slowly and the lust clears in them when he sees Ian standing in the doorway of his room. His eyes widen dramatically and he starts slapping at the man’s back frantically, all the while staring at Ian’s shocked face with his own shocked eyes.

“Is it too much, baby?” Ian hears and he clears his throat to garner the guy’s attention.

The dude pulls out of ‘Geny instantly at hearing the noise and quickly reaches over to the nightstand and shutting off the radio, pulling the blankets over both his and Yev’s naked and sweaty bodies.

“Ian! What the fuck?”

Ian’s frowns at his name being spilled from Yevgeny’s mouth and his language. “Excuse me?”

“You can’t just fucking come in here! I had the door locked!”

“You know the rules about locking doors, Yev and I believe I can come in here whenever I want.” Ian says calmly. “Now, ask your…friend, to leave please.”

The guy starts gathering his clothes but Yevgeny stops him. “We weren’t finished.”

Ian, having little patience from his brief argument with Mickey earlier, feels himself starting to get angry at Yevgeny’s brazen tone. “Well, now you fucking are. So, clean up and get dressed and then come downstairs.”

Svetlana, having heard the commotion from downstairs, arrives in the room just in time to hear,

“You’re not my fucking fa-” Yevgeny screams but then his head snaps to the side before he can finish the sentence.

Ian swallows loudly and tries to ignore his heart falling to the pit of his fucking stomach at what he knew Yevgeny was about to say. “’Lana, it’s-”

Svetlana stares straight into her son’s now tearful eyes. “You finish sentence and you forget graduating in few months because you won’t be there. Yes?” Svetlana asks to see if Yevgeny understands, but when he just continues to stare up at her with teary-filled eyes with a hint of anger showing in their depths, she elaborates further. “I kick your _fucking_ ass, if you _ever_ even try and finish that sentence. Понимаете (Ponimayete)?” (Understand?) Svetlana hisses in Yevgeny’s face, satisfied when she sees his head nod.

She then turns to the black dude standing by the side of the bed, awkwardly trying to pull on his shirt, pants already on, successfully buttoned and belted when Svetlana was chewing out her son. “Кто ебать ты (ktoyebat' ty)? Who the fuck are you?” She translates, in her anger almost forgetting that not everybody understands Russian.

The guy gulps. “My name is-”

“Опять с именем дерьма. Это не трудно чертовски вопрос. Чертовы тупица дети в эти дни (Opyat' s imenem der'ma. Eto ne trudno chertovski vopros. Chertovy tupitsa deti v eti dni).” (Again with the name shit. It’s not a hard fucking question. Fucking dumbass kids these days.) Svetlana spits out angrily. “I didn’t ask for name. I ask who you are.”

The guy stares at Svetlana for a couple of seconds and then opens his mouth to speak. “I’m Yevgeny’s boyfriend.”

Svetlana nods, glad that he understood her question, and then stares at him closely. “What age are you?”

“Mom-” Yevgeny tries to cut in.

“Заткнись,Евгений. (Zatknis', Yevgeniy).” (Shut up, Eugene). Svetlana doesn’t even spare her son a look and instead waits for the guy to tell her his age.

“…I’m 23, ma’am.”

Svetlana nods once more, her teeth biting onto her bottom lip softly. Her eyes narrowed to slits and Ian’s outburst halts what she was going to say.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Ian screams stepping further into the room. “He’s 17 fucking years old!” Ian steps threateningly closer to the man but then he takes a deep breath to try and prevent from whooping this kid- no, _man_ ’s ass. “What’s your name?”

The guy backs up a little in fear that he’s going to be hit. “Joseph Smith, Sir.”

“Ok, Joseph Smith, Joe, can I call you Joe?” Ian asks but continues on without letting Joseph answer. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna finish getting dressed and then you’re gonna walk your happy, pedophilic ass down those stairs and straight out that fucking door and don’t ever come back, okay?”

Joe looks like he wants to protest, so Ian steps closer and now stands nose to nose with the man. He’s got at least five centimeters on Joe and though Joe has a bit more width than Ian, Ian knows that he can still take him if it comes down to it.

“Is there something you wanna say or what?”

“I-I, I like your son and I would like it if-” Joe’s cut off by something smashing against the wall a centimeter away from his head.

Svetlana starts hollering in Russian and Joe takes that as his cue to quickly give Yevgeny one last kiss before sprinting out of the room and out of the house.

Svetlana and Ian turn back to Yevgeny who’s cowering in the bed-sheets. “Are you gonna tell Dad?” His voice cracks.

Ian sighs and has the distinct idea that Yevgeny is talking about both his near declaration about Ian not being his dad as well as him fucking a 23 year old in their house and his apparent relationship with him. Ian looks at Svetlana who just shrugs. “Not now, he hasn’t been feeling too well, so we’ll wait,” ‘Geny collapses back into bed with relief, and then tenses up again. “But I am going to tell him, don’t doubt that.”

-

Around 10 P.M.

Pouring some vanilla bubble bath into the steadily rising tub of water, Ian caps the bottle, placing it back under the sink and stepping back out into the bedroom. They had just finished eating the Chinese food Ian had promised to order and Mickey’s sitting in the bed, aimlessly flipping through the stations on the T.V.

“Hey, why don’t you go ahead and get in first? I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Mickey nods and slides off the bed, stepping into the bathroom and starting to strip.

Ian takes a couple of seconds to watch him and then turns and leaves the bedroom altogether, closing it shut behind him.

He goes a little ways down the hall until he arrives at a door and knocks on it. He’s met with Mandy in an oversized shirt with nothing underneath when the door opens and she steps to the side to allow Ian to enter and he does.

“’Lana told me what happened earlier with Yev.” She closes the door behind her in case one of the kids or Mickey overhear, though it’s a bit unlikely since she can hear the kids shouting at one another downstairs in the living room over something.

“She did?” Ian goes to sit on the bed but thinks better of it and decides to sit in the desk chair.

“Yea,” Mandy jumps onto the bed and flops backwards onto it. “That was a pretty shitty thing for him to say.”

“He didn’t say it though.” Ian pointedly looks away his best friend’s/ex-girlfriend’s/sister-in-law’s exposed stuff and clears his throat for the second time that day, gaining Mandy’s attention.

“Oops, sorry. Forgot you like dick.” She slips under the bedcovers and gets comfortable. “But it doesn’t matter that he didn’t say it, you knew what he was _going_ to say. And it’s fucked up. All the shit you’ve done for him in the past and to this day? The fuck’s that about?”

Ian stares at the floor with a lost look. “I don’t know, Mands. For the last few years, he’s been really…distant, from me…y’know? And I-I don’t know what happened or what I did but we weren’t like what we were before.”

“You didn’t do anything, Ian. Maybe it’s something he’s going through. Like teenage hormones and shit.”

“I don’t think so,” Ian shakes his head, making Mandy cock her head to the side in wonder.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes we’ll get along well and then later on, he’s calling me Ian and is just being an overall _jackass_ to me.”

Mandy hums. “What about Mickey? What does he say about it?”

“He just plays it off and says the same thing what you just said…about it being teenage hormones.” Ian scoffs, running a hand over his buzzed hair.

The door opens and in steps Svetlana, freshly showered, her small robe wrapped around her body. “What is this?”

“I was just telling Ian about what you told me happened earlier,” Svetlana slips out of her robe and walks over naked to her side of the bed, causing Ian to roll his eyes at these womens’ tendencies to walk around butt fucking naked. Just ‘cause he’s gay doesn’t mean he wants to see all of that shit. “He says Yev’s been acting like a dick to him for a while now.”

“I didn’t say it like _that_ …”

Rubbing lotion all over her body and beckoning for Mandy to help her, Svetlana speaks. “’Geny tell me that he was not thinking when he opened mouth earlier.”

“Clearly.”

Ian pins Mandy with a look who just shrugs innocently.

“Thank you, Svetlana.”

“For what?”

“For…stepping in earlier and you handled the situation better than I did, that’s for sure. Wish I could learn Russian, just so I could’ve understood what you said.”

Svetlana pulls on her own oversized shirt, yet thankfully her shirt covers up to her lower thigh. _Thank God_. Ian watches as she approaches him. “Orange Boy, you did best you could. I handle situation with violence and you did not. And you are Yevgeny’s father,” Svetlana and Mandy see Ian’s eyes widen. “Just as much as I am his mother and Minnie Mouse is his father. It is something Yevgeny has to deal with, not you and until he is ready to come talk to you and Minnie, he has to figure shit out on own.”

With that, Svetlana turns and goes back towards the bed. “And Russian is not all cracked up as it seems, it is very difficult to learn and is not really interesting.”

“Well, I think it’s _sexy_.”

Ian and Svetlana hear Mandy say and Ian stands up and heads to the door. “Annnd that’s my cue to leave.” Ian wasn’t interested in watching someone who he feels is like a fourth sister to him fuck around with someone who has surprisingly become a good friend to him in the last 10, 15 years. “Just keep it down, I’m tryna’ relax Mickey tonight.”

Mandy breaks her giggling with Svetlana and turns to Ian. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, Mands, he’s just…” Ian knows that Mickey wouldn’t want anyone else to know that he’s scared, let alone his sister and ex-wife. “Not feeling too well.”

-

“Fuckin’ finally. Where the fuck you been?”

Ian strips off his clothes and looks down at his husband sitting up in the sudsy tub, glaring at him.

“I was just talking to Mands and ‘Lana about something.”

Ian begins shuffling through the drawers of the bathroom and looking under the cabinets.

Squishing and playing with the bubbles in the bath discreetly, Mickey frowns. “The fuck you talkin’ with those two Lesbos about?”

Rolling his eyes, Ian opens their bathroom door and goes out in to the bedroom shuffling through the drawers in their dresser. Ian knows what Mickey’s worrying about. “Calm down, Mick, I didn’t tell them about anything and how you’re really feeling. I just told them you weren’t feeling well and you needed to relax.”

“Whatever,” Ian hears the muffled voice from the bathroom. “’Ay, what the fuck you lookin’ for anyway? Fuckin’ water’s gettin’ cold!”

“So, then keep it warm for me, Mick,” Ian smiles when Mickey’s muttered “Fuck off,” sounds through the wall. “And I’m looking for some candles…help calm you, us…if I…can just…find, yes! Got ‘em!”

Ian rushes back to the bathroom, closing the door behind him and placing the candles all over the bathroom counter nicely and lighting it with the lighter he found on their dresser. Shutting off the lights Ian nods; satisfied when it creates a romantic atmosphere.

“Get over here, Ian, _Christ_.” Mickey scoots up and lets Ian slip in behind him, before he unabashedly presses his back against Ian’s chest, wiggling around to get comfortable.

“…We should do this more often.” Mickey murmurs, playing with Ian’s fingers.

“Really?” Ian’s head tilts down to look at Mickey in shock. “Mickey, self-proclaimed badass, thug of Southside, who used to walk around like he was allergic to a simple shower, actually _likes_ and _wants_ to take more bubble baths? Holy shit, what has the world- oompfh, Ow!” Ian rubs his side from where Mickey just elbowed him.

“Fuck you. You know you like it just as much as I do.” Mickey says half-heartedly, smiling when he hears Ian chuckle and agree.

Ian pours some soap onto his hands and begins washing Mickey. His hands slipping sensuously down the smaller male’s chest and to his defined abs and then further down, rubbing all over his thighs and the insides of them. Mickey’s head falls back against Ian’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering closed, at the firm yet gentle strokes paying special attention to his whole body by his husband’s slightly calloused hands.

Ian then brings his hands up and begins to massage Mickey’s shoulders.

“Mmm…feels good.” Mickey slurs, feeling a bit delirious from his exhausted yet relaxed state and the scented vanilla candles that Ian had found.

“Yeah?” Ian moves lower down Mickey’s slicked up back and applies more pressure, feeling the knots of tension that rests upon each other, embedded within his smooth back. “Move up a bit.” Ian suggested, voice low and hoarse from the feeling of pleasure at knowing that he’s the one extracting these low groans and breathy moans from his husband.

Mickey does so and allows Ian to work his magic fingers all along the kinks in his back. Eyes half lidded and pupils blown wide, only a sliver of blue iris visible around it, Mickey feels himself starting to harden beneath the bubbly water. Ian somehow must’ve sensed it because next thing Mickey knows Ian’s fingers wrap around his length and gives it gentle tugs and strokes.

Ian pulls Mickey back against his chest and leans down to mouth at his pale neck. Mickey shakily exhales and tilts his head further to the side to give Ian more room to work. His hot tonguelaving all over the used-to-be-Milkovich’s neck, Ian continues to jerk Mickey off, listening as his breathing gets heavier and heavier.

He trails his other hand, the one not wrapped around Mickey’s dick, down to Mickey’s tight, little pucker and his fingers lightly circle around it. Mickey eagerly tries to spread his legs further but their bath is a not luxuriously big just enough for a couple bodies to fit in comfortably. So Mickey lifts one leg out of the tub, letting it hang over the side just as the tip of Ian’s finger makes its way inside of Mickey.

“Ssss…”

“You okay? You want me to use some soap or something?” Ian knows it’s been awhile since they last fucked and though Mickey should be a bit loosened from the nearly 20 years they’ve been fucking, he lets Mickey adjust.

“Mm-mm…keep goin’, add another.”

Ian listens, adding a second finger and continually stroking Mickey’s cock as he releases another hiss. Figuring that’s enough fingers for now, Ian begins thrusting them gently, in and out. He speeds up and they continue on like that for a few more minutes with Ian thrusting and stroking and Mickey groaning at the slight pain and steadily increasing pleasure.

Mickey jolts and lets out a loud moan and Ian knows he’s hit his husband’s spot. He pauses and slowly pulls his fingers out, shushing Mickey when he makes a sound of protest and he places his arm under Mickey’s leg, the one not hooked over the edge of the tub, so he can better access to that spot inside of him. Slipping his fingers back in, Ian presses around a bit and then another jolt of Mickey’s body, Ian finds that lovely spot and steadily rubs his fingers against the ridged bump.

“Ohhh, fuck _yes_. Sss, right fuckin’ there…” Mickey leans his head further back against the crook of Ian’s shoulder and neck and his hand grasps the side of the tub frantically as he rocks back onto the ginger’s thick fingers.

“Like that, huh?” Ian whispers in Mickey’s ear, still rubbing against that spot harshly.

“Mm-hm, feels so fuckin’ good… _ahh_ , fuckin’ Christ…”

 ** _Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**. **_Thud_**.

“Oh come the fuck on!” Ian yells, stopping his ministrations.

“First thing tomorrow mornin’ we’re goin’ up there.” Mickey pushes Ian’s hand out of him and gets up from the bath and steps out onto the towel to prevent water from getting all over the place. “’Cause I’ve had enough of this shit.”

Ian lets out a heavy sigh. Guess their bath/relaxation time was ruined. “You sure you wanna do that?”

Mickey turns to Ian as he dried off with a towel he snatched from the linen closet, his eyebrows raised. “Obviously this shit wants our fuckin’ attention, Ian and you know what? Now he, she, it or they, whatever the fuck, got it.”

“So, I guess you’re not in the mood anymore?”

Flipping Ian the bird, Mickey opens the door to their bathroom and steps out into the bedroom to get ready for bed.

-

Regan wakes up later and looks over to her nightstand to see the neon green time of 3:05 A.M displaying on her alarm clock. Groaning, she pushes the sheets off of herself and gets to her feet, intent on going to the bathroom with the need to piss like a fucking racing horse.

She opens her door and steps out into the pitch black hallway. She pauses and with groggy, narrowed eyes she runs her hand all along the wall trying to find the light switch for the hallway. Regan takes a couple steps away from her bedroom door and her hand finally brushes against the switch and she quickly flicks it on, eyes immediately squinting closed from the burning penetration of the light.

Walking down all the way at the end of the hall to her left, she reaches the bathroom, flicks on that light and closes the door behind her, sitting on the toilet and sighing with relief as she relieves herself.

As she sits there, she reflects on what happened earlier.

After her friends left and her mother went upstairs, she had heard the commotion that was going on upstairs. She, Dmitri and Mandy didn’t make out the whole conversation but they heard Ian scream about Yevgeny being 17 years old and then Svetlana hollering in Russian and then the sounds of shit being thrown. As the three of them downstairs were staring at each other in wonder and shock, the big black dude that Regan and Dmitri had seen with Yevgeny came tripping down the stairs in his rush to get out of the house.

Regan and Dmitri had then looked at each other with knowing looks. Ian had most likely caught Yevgeny and the dude fucking and all hell broke loose from there. They had actually known about Yevgeny’s relationship with this guy. Dmitri had seen messages on Yev’s phone exchanged between him and this guy, while Regan had seen him and Yev hugging and kissing all over each other once when he still had his car and Regan got out of class early enough to catch them in the car. They just never found out what his name was. Dmitri had said that the dude’s contact name was ‘Babe’.

When they had turned to Aunt Mandy, they saw that her face was ashen white and when they asked her what was wrong she had replied. “Nothing…just, that guy looked like someone I used to know back in my dating history.”

They didn’t ask any questions after that.

But when Ian and Svetlana came back down, Ian looked a bit down but he had told Dmitri and Regan that they if they did that shit again without asking first, that’ll be the last time that they’ll have any friends over until they turn 18 and move the fuck out. Regan and Dmitri didn’t argue of course.

Regan had had a group chat with Drew, Teagan, Caden and Reid a few hours later, while she and her brothers were downstairs in the kitchen eating ice cream and messing around with each other. Teagan and Drew were telling Caden and Reid what happened and why they were just standing around outside the attic door.

She hadn’t participated in the chat as much as it still bothered her about why they couldn’t get into that attic door. There was no reason that they couldn’t open it; no locks, no little keyholes, nothing. It was just a solid brass handle attached to an old wooden door with strange ass carvings in it, and then that dust that was on the floor; what the _fuck_ was that stuff?

Regan shakes her head and cleans up, flushing the toilet and washing her hands after her. She gets that urge that most people get to look into the mirror and does so. Her hair is tied up into a high ponytail and she has on some sleep shorts paired with a simple tank-top. Her eyes are a bit crusted at the corners and she wipes it away before it gets into her eyes, as that shit hurts like a son of a bitch. She dries her hands and then looks back in the mirror one last time but as she’s turning away, what sounds like a laugh catches her attention.

She looks around for a second, listening and before she settles on the idea that she may have imagined it, the laugh sounds again, maybe more similar to that of a giggle instead of a laugh. It sounds like a little kid’s, like they’re out playing or something, but Regan knows that’s not possible as it’s three in the goddamn morning and any parent who lets their kid play outside at three in the goddamn morning, needs to be evaluated at the nearest psychiatric ward. Eyebrows furrowing, Regan moves from the mirror and bypassing the toilet, she steps up to the window carefully and pushes the curtain aside, peeking out through the blinds.

Eyes darting from left to right, she just sees the stretch of woods that’s behind their house. She sees the huge expanse of grass for their backyard and then sees the large pool that they bought a couple of weeks ago. Everything looks where it’s supposed to be. No weird ass kids playing or standing around or anything.

Regan pulls back and closes the curtain. She glances at herself in the mirror one last time and yelps at the blood-red, eyed version of herself staring back at her with a creepy smile.

Regan blinks and then she sees her normal blue eyed self staring back at her with a mirrored freaked out look. She blinks rapidly and when she still sees her normal self, she sighs and leans on the counter for a minute to recollect herself. What the fuck was that?

She looks up at the analogue clock above the counter, right next to the door and she sees that it’s 3:05. _Wasn’t it 3:05 when I left my room_? She thinks and decides whatever, she’s tired and she’ll let someone know in the morning that the clock is broken.

Not sparing another look in the mirror, she opens the door and flicks the light off, stepping out into the hallway. She walks down to her room, rubbing her eyes but then stops.

She backs up a couple of steps and pauses at the end of the stairwell leading up to the door of the attic.

Her eyes widen when she notices that the door is wide open.

Regan stares up at the opened door in stupefied shock for a couple minutes before her eyes harden and her mouth twists into a tight line. She’s gonna figure out what the fuck’s going on. She treads quietly down the stairs and rushes into the kitchen to find a flashlight. She gets two in case one of them decides to die on her out of nowhere. Sneaking back up the stairs, Regan finds herself shivering more and more; from being cold or the foreboding feeling that she’s starting to get as she ascends the attic stairwell to the open door, Regan’s not sure.

She stops once more and thinks and then runs down the steps to her room to slip into her slippers just in case there’s glass on the floor or spiders and insects crawling or dead all over the place, she doesn’t want to step on or in them with bare feet.

Looking down all the way to her right at her fathers’ closed door and then looking down to her left at the open bathroom door and doing the same for her brothers’ doors and her mother and aunt’s door, Regan takes a deep breath and begins walking back up the stairs. Pausing at the top step, she sees that the dark substance that was there earlier is now gone. _Well, where the fuck did it go_?

Regan shakes her head and continues onward, now standing in the attic. She turns the flashlight on and the room of the attic is illuminated in the bright, white light.

It’s decidedly eerie in Regan’s opinion.

It’s dark and damp and cold, really fucking cold, like Antarctica cold and Regan can see her breath in front of her as she inhales and exhales. It’s a pretty big attic, not small and cramped and triangular, like most attics are, it looks like a master bedroom for fuck’s sake. But there’re just clutters of junk placed throughout the whole room. Across from where Regan is still standing a bit over the threshold of the door, is a huge white bay window that faces the woods at the back of the house.

Under it is a bunch of dirty and old, random furniture. A couple of chairs overturned and a shitty beige colored couch and what looks like a few cots thrown onto their sides or upside down. Moving the flashlight to the right of her and taking a few steps further into the attic, she sees more random shit discarded all along the side of the wall; boxes piled on top of each other, more chairs and what looks like desks, and a few metallic cases. There’s a few weird ass dolls strewn all over the floor, some with their heads missing. Others with an eye or a limb, maybe even just half a head missing.

Regan shivers and turns to her left, now fully in the room, standing in the center of the attic. Her flashlight catches on some more furniture and she finds herself starting to get annoyed. _What the fuck did this place used to be, a goddamn furniture store_? There’re more desks and more cots, most flipped over like the rest in the room. They’re all rusted and dirty and of course there’re more butt ugly dolls lying about.

It looks like all this stuff was thrown up here in a rush and Regan wonders what could’ve been so important to just up and cast this shit up here and dip. Turning around from the left wall, her back now facing the window, she freezes.

 _What the fuck_?

There, where the door is wide open, is a little boy, couldn’t be no more than 10. He’s dressed in some dark slacks and a half tucked in, white button down, long-sleeved shirt. He has on buckled shoes and his hair is black and straight, bangs hanging over his forehead. His face looks light blue and Regan hopes it’s because of the moon shining in through the window and not because of the other possibility. But the fact that there’s no one in this house under the age of 15, it was certainly leaning towards the realm of being supernatural.

“Do you want to play with us?”

The child’s voice actually talking startles Regan and she takes a moment to let the kid’s sentence register. “…What do you mean by us?”

His arm extends out and he points behind Regan. She hesitates but then she looks behind herself and walks closer to the window. Peering out, she gasps when she sees a horde of kids, all boys, standing outside in their backyard, and they were all staring up at her with the same dead and dull eyes as the boy from a minute ago. There’s at least 50 of them and they’re all dressed the same; the dark slacks and the white buttoned shirts.

They didn’t all look the same age though. Some looked to be about her and Dmitri and ‘Geny’s age, maybe even a couple of years older, but definitely not in the 20’s. They were all pale, pale blue with dark hair, though some ranged in style and texture, with light colored eyes, a mixture of blue and green, blue being the most apparent in a lot of them.

She wonders who the fuck all these boys are and she also wonders why the fuck she isn’t scared? These kids don’t seem like they pose as a threat and Regan feels a hint of sadness and grief and pain coming from them all and a hint of…pleasure?

Turning back to face the boy behind her, ready to ask something, Regan stops once she notices the little boy gone. She turns back to the window and sees all the other boys have disappeared as well.

“Where the hell did they go?” She mutters out, eyes searching.

Giggling sounds somewhere from her left and she shines the light over there to see where the source is coming from; maybe it’s one of the kids. Flashlight doing a slow perusal over everything, she doesn’t find anything.

More giggling sounds behind her but this time she’s reluctant to turn around and look.

This sounds…different. More dark and sinister, yet at the same time still child-like.

In the back of her mind a voice is saying, _you know that’s not a little boy_ and _run_. But she’s frozen to the spot. The giggling suddenly stops and Regan feels a cold prickle of fear wash over her whole body. She feels her hair stand on end and white, buzzing sounds in her ear, like white noise.

“You’re not going to look at me, sweetheart?” She hears behind her and her eyes start to water in terror at the sound of the voice.

It sounds deep and distorted, like there’s multiple voices talking but with the same low and monstrous tone.

“Look at me.” The thing whispers and Regan refuses to do so, instead staring wide eyed and tearful at the topsy-turvied furniture in front of her. She should’ve never come up here.

“ ** _LOOK_** _. **AT**. **ME**_!” It screams violently and after a couple of seconds, Regan painfully slowly turns her head and looks behind her, flashlight shining brightly in her shaking hands.

There’s nothing there.

Her flashlight wobbles from right to left and she doesn’t see anything.

She hears a noise behind her and she whips her head around only to make eye contact with blood red eyes and a pitch black, demonic face. Its mouth opens, showcasing a row of fanged teeth with a serpent tongue and with a nasty smile it says,

“Thank you.” And then lunges forward at Regan the moment she shrieks.

Regan’s eyes snap open in bed and she goes to sit up but finds that she can’t move. She tries to wriggle around and move her limbs but it’s like she’s paralyzed from the neck down. She whips her head from side to side and the time on the alarm clock catches her eye; 3:05 A.M.

Still not able to move and fearing that something’s wrong she opens her mouth to yell for someone but it’s choked off when a heavy weight is added onto her chest and she looks down with saucer-sized, terrified eyes and with horror, sees herself sinking further into the bed with the weight being pressed down over her.

She looks back up and her eyes widen impossibly more at the crimson colored eyes staring at her, the same ones she saw in that nightmare of hers. She realizes that this thing is holding her down with enough force that she can’t move any of her limbs a fucking inch and based off that look in its eyes, doesn’t plan on letting her go.

Its face moves closer towards hers and it’s tongue lolls out licks up the side of her neck erotically and though it should feel gross and disgusting and downright horrifying, she finds herself becoming aroused; that just makes her try all the more harder to get away from this thing.

More pressure is added on her chest and she tries desperately to take in as much air as possible and she stares up at this thing through narrowed, tear-filled blue eyes.

She sees its red eyes, that seem to glow hypnotically in the dark and she takes in its wide mouth full of sharp teeth, his black forked tongue slithering out of his mouth teasingly. Its skin is the same color as it was in her nightmare but blue fire-lick designs seem to decorate his whole body, even parts of his face and on top of its head are two tan, thickly, furled horns.

Regan glances down the rest of the thing’s body and notices how built and buff it is. Just what the fuck is this thing?

She feels something hard press against her down below and she pauses before trying tenfold to get this thing off of her. Thrashing her head wildly and using all her strength, she sucks in enough breath and screams, ear piercingly loud, closing her eyes tightly.

“ _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, the story isn't going to focus on Regan. I had to set up the next part and I had an insane bout of writer's block, so the scene with Regan and Dmitri's friends and Yevgeny's boyfriend was improvised and I think it set up the next few chapters well.
> 
> Though, those friends will probably never be seen/heard from again as they're not really important to the story.
> 
> I guess you guys can figure out the last scene and what was going on; some of you may already know what this thing is, or at least what part of it is.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been awhile, I understand.
> 
> All of the comments and everything, I appreciate immensely, so thank you.
> 
> I was going to update like 3 or 4 chapters but I could tell people were itching for it to be updated immediately, so one chapter it is, and it's short because like I said, I understand what it's like to wait for a story to be updated that you just can't wait for it, so here we go.
> 
> IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO MY OTHER STORIES, INCLUDING THIS ONE, THEN ALL OF THAT INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND IN THE END NOTES OF MY NEWEST STORY. DON'T EVEN HAVE TO READ THE STORY ITSELF, JUST SCROLL DOWN TO THE END AND READ IT.
> 
> Enjoy.

Mickey’s eyes shoot open and he lurches up in bed, breathing rough and coming out in short, shocked pants. He looks around, taking in the stillness of the room, and notices that everything is where it should be.

Lying back down on the bed, Mickey lets out a sigh and looks at the time. 3:05 A.M. He frowns when he realizes that that was the same time that he saw in the dream.

Said dream was just really…strange. Strange enough that he didn't want to think about it yet curious enough to wonder the meaning behind it.

He had felt someone or some _thing_ standing over him but it didn’t feel like a threatening presence; it was more of an innocent one. Regardless, it still gave him an eerie feeling. He didn’t see the figure. He just _felt_ it standing by his side of the bed, solely focused on him.

“…You a’right?”

Mickey turns to Ian whose eyes are narrowed, peering blearily at him from beneath exhausted lids, his sleep husked voice permeating through the quiet of the night. He sighs and rubs a hand over his face, staring tiredly up at the ceiling. “Yeah…just another weird ass dream.”

Ian hums knowingly. Since opening up to Ian more and more about the strange nightmares, the ginger’s starting to get increasingly used to waking up on his side of the bed as a result of hearing gasping breaths or feeling the heavy jostle of the bed when Mickey jerked awake.

Softly clearing his throat to dispel his hoarse voice, Ian slowly sits up, pushing the covers and thick comforter off of his naked body.

“Mm…nice view.” Mickey mutters lowly, eyes tracking his husband’s movements as he steps out of bed and walks over to their bathroom.

Ian chuckles. “Perv.”

Smiling, Mickey flops back down onto the bed from where he was raised up on his forearm when he hears the tell-tale sign of Ian taking a piss.

“Whatever. You like it.”

“…Maybe I do…” Mickey hears the toilet flush and the rush of water from the sink turning on. “Hey, what time is it?”

Mickey turns his head to the side to look at the clock on his bedside table and his brows furrow. “…huh…” He says incredulously.

“What?” Ian asks as he walks back into the room.

“It’s 3:05…”

“And?”

“I don’t know, I think the damn clock’s broken or somethin’…”

“Really? We’ve had that thing for like- _ever_.”

“Yeah well, obviously the batteries need to be changed unless it really has been 3:05 for the last couple minutes…”

“I’ll go see if I can find some in the kitchen drawer then, there should be some in there.” Ian pulls on his sweatpants and a shirt, walking to their bedroom door.

“I’mma go with you, I’m hungry anyway.” Mickey doesn’t deny that he could use a little snack but deep down he knew that he just didn’t want to be by himself after that…dream, or whatever the fuck it was because it felt real, _too_ real.

He’s really got to get a hold of himself. He refuses to let this house or whatever the hell’s going on with it turn him into that typical pussy like everyone always witnesses in horror movies. It’s just not happening. But for right now, he’s not going to take his chances and is going to take comfort in his husband’s presence and fuck all who find that cute. It’s just a…pre-cautionary measure.

“At three in the morning, Mick? Really?” Mickey gives Ian a blank look until he realizes that the taller man is talking about his ridiculous sweet tooth.

“Who cares? We’re all adults here and if I wanna indulge myself in somethin’ sugary at fuck all in the mornin’ then I will,” Mickey sasses back, missing Ian rolling his eyes as he yanks on his shirt and striped boxers. “Now, let’s go.”

Yapping to each other quietly, they leave their room and make the journey downstairs into the kitchen where Mickey immediately takes a detour towards the fridge and Ian turns in the direction of the drawers.

Stepping onto the cold, tiled floor, Ian watches as Mickey pulls out a tub of Friendly’s Butter Crunch ice cream and immediately begins digging in with a spoon he retrieved from a nearby drawer.

“Don’t complain to me when you get a stomach ache later…”

Mickey scoffs. “Oh, fuck off, don’t try ta’ pretend like you won’t jump on the opportunity ta’ rub my stomach the second I start complainin’.”

Ian scowls at the smaller male but the all-knowing glint in his husband’s eyes threatens to break the scowl into a smile because he knows Mickey's right. To completely hide the oncoming smile, Ian faces the drawers and begins pulling them out one by one in search of the batteries.

Outside the sound of shuffling papers and rolling knick knacks as Ian searched high and low in a few of the drawers as well as the sound of Mickey crunching on the buttery caramel candy embedded within the ice cream, it's silent throughout the kitchen and the rest of the house.

After his craving was filled, Mickey closes the tub back up and shoves it back into the freezer, tossing the spoon into the sink to wash in the morning. He hops onto the small space of marble counter by the fridge and watches as his husband continues to sift through the contents of the drawers. He absentmindedly continues to watch him yet his full attention begins to drift away as he thinks back to that dream.

Comparing it to the rest of the nightmares he’s been having, he can honestly call this one a _dream_ , because there wasn’t really much of anything that was nightmarish about it. But he still can’t deny the fact that there was something about it that added to the creep factor of their whole living in this house situation. Mickey tries to think of the dream in his head, picking out bits and piecing them back together like one of those 500 piece puzzles since he’s sure he’s missing something. He closes his eyes and leans his head back to rest against the cherry wooden cabinet behind him as the tendrils of his most recent dream begins to slowly inch together in his mind, recreating the scene to the best of its ability.

_Silence._

_That’s all Mickey can hear as he lays in bed, Ian sprawled out next to him, dead to the world, as he lightly snores. Mickey feels himself sleeping soundly. It’s quiet for the next few minutes and in those few minutes, nothing pops up-_

The dream tapers off before abruptly ending not giving Mickey the chance to retrieve something of significant value from it. He internally curses and forces himself to dig even harder to figure out the presence that was in the room with him. Closing off all surroundings, Mickey feels his eyebrows furrow in frustration when he’s unsuccessful in bringing the dream back up. It’s like trying to remember something that never happened but that’s fucking ridiculous because he _did_ have the dream and he has the gut feeling that it actually did happen…

That while Mickey and Ian were sleeping, there really was something in that room with them.

Mickey jolts when a broad, warm hand rests on his thigh, making him snap his eyes open.

Ian jumps at Mickey’s jolt and quietly shouts, “Fuck!” careful in the possibility of waking up the other occupants of the house. “You scared the shit out of me! I called your name like 20 times and you didn’t answer-”

“Shh, relax, Firecrotch, you’re so goddamn loud…” Mickey mutters, a hand holding his head as he feels a massive headache starting to make its landing.

“Christ, Mickey,” Ian exhales a worried sigh of relief recognizing his usual attitude. “Are you okay, though? What happened?”

Finally picking his head up, Mickey starts to explain. “I was tryin’ ta’ remember my dream but I couldn’t-” Mickey cuts himself off and Ian mistaking it for Mickey still trying to remember, interjects.

“Well, nobody can remember their dreams, Mick, everyone knows- what? What’s wrong?” Ian notices Mickey’s face turns pale white, similar to what he looked like earlier on yesterday when they were eating lunch and Ian told the smaller male about the man he saw at the hospital.

“R-Ray, Regan!” Mickey stutters in shock before yelling out, hopping off the counter and running out of the kitchen towards the front door.

Ian turns around and sees his daughter staring into the kitchen window from outside. His heart shoots into his throat and without hesitation he sprints after his husband but then stops, realizing something. He looks up to where he can hear Mickey frantically running for the door and fumbling with the locks and he quickly catches up to him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him back before he has the chance to step one foot outside.

He slams the door shut, locking it back up, all the while holding a heavily struggling Mickey in his arms whom was screaming incoherent obscenities.

“Mick- Mick…Mickey! Mickey! Stop it, stop-”

Mickey finally escapes from Ian’s steel hold by knocking his head backwards into Ian’s and stumbling over his feet into the wall when that immediately forces the tall ginger to let go and tend to his slightly bleeding nose.

“Are you fuckin’ insane?! That’s our daughter out there and you’re tellin’ me ta’ stop!” Mickey starts towards the front door again.

“Mickey! That’s not her!”

“The _fuck_ are you talkin’ about?” Mickey hisses angrily.

“Mickey, that window is at least _six_ feet _off_ the ground ‘cause the front porch doesn’t start until the next window _over_.”

“The fuck’s your point?”

“Mick, there’s no way we’d be able to see Ray in that window, unless she was standing on a mini-fucking-ladder, she’d be too short to fully be seen like we saw her! You get what I’m saying?”

Mickey slowly begins to understand, his heart slowing down from its erratic and scared beating. The front of the house had a porch but it wasn’t a wrap-around, even though the back of the house had a porch as well, the two weren’t connected. A short ascent of concrete stairs opened up to the porch with a long stretch of it on the right side yet a much shorter stretch on the left side that stopped by the window in the foyer, right next to the front door. While the rest of the left side of the front of the house met with the grassy ground.

Which means-

Ian and Mickey share a look and then run back into the kitchen to find that the not-Regan is still outside, eyes staring into the kitchen but now focused on Ian and Mickey.

“Then…who the fuck is that?” Mickey questions shakily.

The not-Regan smiles and the two men’s eyes widen in disbelief and fear when her eyes become blackly shadowed and her mouth slowly opens, allowing for a thick, black substance to spill out of her mouth.

"You're seein' this shit too, right?"

“Yeah, Mick...Shit, we have to go check on Regan, come on. Come on, Mickey!” Ian pulls Mickey away from the sight and they run up the stairs, the batteries and everything else but the safety of their family forgotten.

As they rush up the stairs, they’re met with Svetlana wrapped up tightly in her robe, arms crossed over chest with a tired expression on her face. “What is all noise about? Why nose bleeding?” She directs the last question to Ian.

Both go unanswered as the two determined men get to their daughter’s room and Ian opens the door.

Or at least he tries to. It doesn’t budge.

“The fuck are you doin’? Get the fuckin’ door open!”

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, Mick?” Ian throws his weight against the resolute door and curses when it once again refuses to open.

Mickey pushes through him and begins kicking at the solid object. Svetlana starts talking in rapid Russian and they vaguely register more doors opening until a chorus of voices overlap each other wondering what’s going on. Mickey loses his patience and yells, “Everybody shut the fuck up!”

“Dad, what the fuck is going on?” Everyone was too concerned about the situation to scold or say something about Dmitri’s language.

“We’ll explain later-”

“No,” Svetlana steps forward, eyes no longer displaying sleepiness, but clouded in abject worry over the possibility of her daughter being in danger. “Explain _now_.”

“Svetlana! We don’t have time-just…someone go get something to break the door down!” Mickey yells in frustration.

Without another word, everyone spreads out trying to find something heavy and large enough to penetrate through the wooden door of Regan’s room excluding Ian and Mickey who were now working together to run the door down.

“ _Move_.”

Mickey and Ian stop at Svetlana’s deadly voice. They turn around and Mickey gives her look as if she’s crazy. “Are you outta your fuckin’ _mind_? Put that shit away!” He gestures to the gun held steady in the Russian woman’s hands.

“We cannot get door open, what other choice we have?” Svetlana reasons.

“There’s other choices than using the gun, ‘Lana. What if you shoot Regan?”

“Through a wooden door?”

“If the shit is powerful enough, yes!”

“We are wasting time!”

“The door’s not even locked!”

“What you mean the door’s not locked? So open it!”

“Don’t you think we’ve been tryin’? It’s like something’s blockin’ the fuckin’ _thing_.” Mickey punctuates his statement with an angry kick to the unforgiving door.

“Fine…we push together. Move.” Svetlana forces her way in between the two men, unloading the gun and shoving the bullets into her robe pockets before throwing it to the floor and kicking it away.

“What the fuck- you know what? Fuck it. On three…One…Two… _Three_!” All three adults run towards the door and crash into it, their desperation and worry and anger fortifying their strength into one swoop as the door breaks nearly off its hinges and the three of them come crashing into the room.

They stand up from their fallen position on the floor and quickly look to locate Regan only to find that she isn’t there.

“Where the hell is she?” Svetlana whispers out.

Mickey walks over to Regan’s sleep rumpled bed and presses down on it as if the empty space they’re seeing is an illusion and their daughter is still lying peacefully asleep on top of it. “Shit, Ian, what if that really was her downstairs? What if he fuckin’ took her-her-her _body_ or some shit?” Mickey starts babbling in fear and before Ian can console him and calm him down, Svetlana interrupts.

“You doing drugs? What the fuck you talking about? Who take her body? I swear, Mickey, if something happened…” Svetlana tapered off on her threat to leave it hanging in the air left unsaid to let the two men know she wasn’t joking.

“Guys…?”

The three bewildered and concerned adults turn in the direction of Mandy’s small voice.

“What’s wrong?” Mickey walks out of the room and up to his sister, his eyes squinting from the harsh light of the hallway. “Why’d you turn this bright ass light…” Mickey trails off when he sees the frightened look in his little sister’s eyes, feeling Ian and Svetlana step up behind him as they exit Regan’s room.

A sickening feeling arose in all of their stomachs at what they’re seeing, including Dmitri and Yev’s as they climb back up the stairs having no longer heard the banging and yelling sounds of their parents trying to break down their sister’s door.

Without a single thought, Ian shoots up the stairs ignoring Mickey’s call of, “Ian, wait!”

Bursting in through the open door of the attic, Ian feels frigid coldness creep into his bones yet he pushes the extreme temperature change from his mind, solely focused on finding his daughter. “Regan?” He squints through the darkness, using the light from the hallway downstairs to aid in the illumination of the room.

He steps further in and hears as the others rush up the steps behind him. “Fuckin’ shit, it’s _freezin’_ in here.”

“Regan!” Yev’s exclamation breaks through the dead silence of the attic. He sees the prone body of his sister lying on her side facing away from all of them and they all crowd around behind her. Svetlana drops down to her knees, her breath appearing in a smoky cloud before her face as she checks to see if Regan is okay in low Russian.

When she doesn’t respond, Svetlana turns her over and all of their eyes widen at her appearance. Her hair is splayed out, wild-looking, but it looks pale, as if it’s been altered a shade lighter than its usual brown. Her eyes and mouth are closed with a bluish tint decorating her lips as if it’s the newest shade in the beauty market and she isn’t moving.

At all.

“Call ambulance!” Svetlana frantically shouts about to perform CPR on her daughter’s lax body.

“No fuckin’ way, we gotta drive ta’ the hospital. It’ll take them forever to get here. We gotta keep her warm ‘till then.”

Mickey kneels down, placing his finger under Regan’s nose to feel for any type of warm exhalations and tries not to panic when nothing comes. After a few seconds, he does register the feeling of a ragged breath and that gives him the cue to quickly lift Regan up and he’s soon out the door and downstairs before they can all blink. The rest of them herd out of the room and back down to the hallway, watching as Ian grabs a bundle of clothes for him and Mickey to quickly dress in and to cover Ray up since she’s only in her tank top and some shorts.

“Mandy, you stay here with D and Yev-” Mickey starts saying, handing Ray off to Ian as he talks to his sister but is of course interrupted.

“No way, we’re coming with you.”

“I’m not gonna argue with you, just-”

“That’s my niece and that’s their sister, you better fucking believe we’re coming with you, I don’t give a fuck what you say.” With that said, Mandy runs to her and Svetlana’s temporary room to throw on some clothes of her own, Dmitri and Yevgeny following suit, while Mickey joins Ian and Svetlana at the front door.

“We gotta wait. They’re comin’ with us.”

“I tell you to tell them to stay here.” Svetlana glares at Mickey.

“That’s what I did, you know Mandy, she doesn’t back down ta’ shit, and I’m sure the boys would’a spoke up too if they’re Aunt didn’t do it all for’em.”

“I do not want them worrying.”

“It’s a little too late for that-”

“If you and Orange Boy pay more attention, this never happen-”

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“You two were up, how you not notice your daughter was not where she supposed to be?”

“We ain’t typical white parents who go around checking ta’ see if their babies’re sleepin’, they’re fuckin’ teenagers!”

“How you not notice blood on steps?”

“Will you just shut the fuck up?”

“You shut the fuck up!” Svetlana screams, breaking into a Russian-filled tirade directed towards Mickey.

Ian blocks their banter out and keeps checking to make sure that Regan is still breathing. It’s shallow but it’s better than nothing. He has her robe draped over her body to try to warm her up and he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Mandy, Dmitri and Yev coming down the stairs, ready to get his daughter to the hospital since they’ve wasted more than enough time.

No more words are spoken and a tense and scared silence smothers them all as they pile into Ian’s truck. Ian waits for the boys, Mandy and Svetlana to sit in the back before gently placing Regan onto their laps and closing the door before running around the side of the vehicle to hop in the passenger side.

Ian didn’t even the close the door all the way before Mickey turns the key in the ignition and pulls out of the driveway, speeding down the road towards the destination of the hospital.

-

Watching the red lights disappear into the darkness of the night, the figure of not-Regan frowns furiously, eyes beaming crimson with its anger. The figure morphs into its true state and with a monstrous snarl, the horned creature disappears.


End file.
